Aftermath
by manfrommercury
Summary: There are countless worlds in Ultra Space, and also countless dangers. One world came to learn that very harshly as a sudden storm of wormholes loosed swarms of hostile creatures across the planet, bringing civilization to its knees. Survivors live out their days in isolated factions, protected by the strength of their pokémon alone.
1. Into the Gray

Marlo

The day was cold and damp, the sky a featureless gray void. An expanse of budding trees stretched in all directions as far as one could see, the occasional southerly breeze rustling the forest and hushing the chatter and chirps of wildlife. She found comfort in that the effects of The Collapse were never so obvious in the wilderness. The calls and cries of wild pokémon reminded her that the world was not gone. The towns and cities were dead, but the bugs and the birds thrived nonetheless. She followed a short distance behind Seren and Dormer. The three of them had been hiking since daybreak. They had been assigned to locate an old research facility – she knew that much. She wondered how much more the others knew about their mission than she did.

They were agents of White Lightning, one of the many factions that had formed in the political power vacuum following The Collapse. When civilization as it had been failed to withstand the relentless invasions, all semblance of government ceased to be. In mere months, humanity was reduced to series of scattered and isolated societies. Two sorts survived The Collapse: the strong, and those who followed them. Survivors found respite under the protection of the most powerful pokémon trainers, who in turn came to command their own factions.

Marlo had heard stories about Seren. He was supposed to have been an accomplished trainer in the old world. In a faction such as White Lightning, that made him something of a soldier. She was troubled at the thought that the same could be said of her. She knew how to battle, certainly, but no part of her wanted to encounter an ultra beast. Seren was a slim man of twenty three with a mop of brown hair falling just past his shoulders, and a narrow, sullen face hallmarked by a pair of steely blue eyes that must have seen everything a few times over and had not been impressed.

She did not know Dormer. He was a tall, gangly man of about fifty with a long face, a curly, unkempt bush of black and gray hair, and an overgrown stubble of the same colors. He had mentioned that he was a physicist. People of scientific professions were invaluable: they offered a token of hope that all was not yet lost. Few living men understood what had actually happened during The Collapse, and even fewer had any ideas about how the world as it had been might one day be restored.

Marlo noticed a stantler nipping at the ground. She liked that. It noticed her, and then it was gone. Not much later, she thought she saw an absol for just an instant further ahead. She liked that less. The appearance of an absol was considered a bad omen in many cultures. This was not the time for superstition. They continued down the hill, and the forest terrain grew rougher. Gentle slopes turned steep as they walked along jagged earthy walls jutting from the ground, exposing curly roots and mossy rocks. They came to the side of a short cliff, and Marlo began to hear a faint engine-like sound. It grew louder, and Seren and Dormer suddenly bolted towards the cliff wall, pressing their bodies against the stony rise. Marlo froze in confusion. Seren grabbed her by the forearm and yanked her over, hushing her with his finger to his lips. Her heart dropped out of her chest as three celesteela rapidly came into view from behind the cliff, flying above the trees with their rocket-like propulsion. The ultra beasts flew east, and then they were gone. Fingers crossed, White Lightning pressed on.

They continued down slope until Marlo identified the sheer silver mass of the sea in the distance through the trees. The water was still as glass, mirroring the solid gray sky. The trees grew sparser as they approached the shoreline. Eventually, the forest conceded entirely to a sandy slope, dotted with brush. They descended the gentle cliff, and found themselves on a cold, gray beach. Here and there laid a random piece of driftwood. Out on the water, Marlo could make out the shadowy curves of the long, winding islands that hugged the coast.

She looked to the horizon and saw blue patches of sky just above the curve of the water. She pondered for a moment exactly how far she was from the end of the gloom.

"Alright science man," said Seren, almost playfully, "What now?"

"You know what now," replied Dormer, drawing a poké ball from his pocket.

Dormer tossed it into the air, and called out a lapras. It landed in the water with a splash, showering the beach. Seren followed suit and called out a salamence. They each mounted their own pokémon.

Marlo watched in amazement as Seren's salamence took to the air. She had never seen a winged dragon pokémon in person. Dormer scoffed and called him a show-off before he called back to Marlo.

"If you don't have a way of your own to get across, you should probably hop on," he patted his lapras on the head, "Unless you'd rather stay here of course and keep watch for buzzwholes."

She thanked him and reluctantly approached the ferry pokémon. She had never liked boats, and traveling into the sea on the back of an aniMarlo was no more appealing. He offered her a hand, and pulled her onto the shell, and they were off. Dormer's lapras waded gently through the water, intent on the islands ahead, while Seren and his dragon kept pace overhead in lazy circles, beating its wings with an occasional _fmph_.

Marlo struggled to find a comfortable seat on the lapras's shell, clinging to the bumps for dear life. Marlo had always hated being on the water. She envied Dormer, who stood proudly with one hand rested on the back of the creature's head. Anxiety rocked her back and forth as she began to force her gaze at the sky in an effort to fight the impending nausea. The beach growing sMarloler in the distance as they waded into the gray towards the island might have been beautiful otherwise. She wished Seren had invited her to fly on his salamence. Dormer glanced at her, and then away, and then turned his head back to her just as quickly.

"Relax, girl," he said, chuckling. Her dismay must have been more palpable than she had thought, which only made it worse.

"Sorry," she said, trying not to sound sick.

"Don't apologize, just calm down. Everything is alright."

Marlo did not reply, hoping not to hear more useless advice. All her life, people had been telling her to relax, to be calm, to not be nervous, to "not let it bother you," and it had always driven her mad. Certainly she would not be battling anxiety if she were in a capacity not to be anxious.

The islands began to grow into view, but not quickly enough for Marlo. They were flat, marshy things, sparsely dotted by leafless windswept trees. Dormer's lapras ferried them to a rickety wooden pier jutting from a concrete platform on the shore. He hopped off and extended a hand back to Marlo. She clung to his arm with both hands as he pulled her from its back. Seren landed on the sand, dismounted, and recalled his salamence to its poké ball. Dormer did the same with his lapras.

The island was empty, save for the pier and at least a thousand little metal signs stuck in the sand around the shoreline displaying "keep out" messages and legal warnings. Ostensibly, the island was a nature reserve. It was a short trek over a sandy slope before they reached their destination: a windowless concrete shed scarcely large enough to store a car, with a heavy steel door displaying a faded yellow and black sign, DO NOT ENTER.

"That sign can't stop me, because I can't read," said Marlo, remembering a joke she had heard sometime before the end of the world.

Seren sighed, Dormer was silent, and Marlo was sorry she had said anything.

Dormer retrieved a key from his pocket and unlocked the door. Within the shed lay a treasure trove of junk: a shovel, an axe, a spool of wire. He led them them in, and closed the door. Complete darkness reigned for a moment before Seren activated the flashlight on his phone. Dormer shoved some tools out of the way to reveal an electronic number pad mounted in the wall. He punched in a long code. A mechanical roar blared somewhere deep beneath them. The floor shifted, and then the ceiling was rising above them. The shed concealed an elevator.

"I would have never pictured you working in a place like this," said Seren as they plunged deeper and deeper. "You must have been involved in some pretty clandestine stuff."

"I worked for the government. Everything I did was clandestine," said Dormer, flatly.

Seren scoffed.

The elevator came to a stop. Dormer stepped off, followed by Seren and Marlo, and a door slid into place behind them with a mechanical hiss. They found themselves at the mouth of a long hallway, lined with metal doors of which each was protected by another number pad. Each door was labelled, A1, A2, and so on. Along the walls, the length was illuminated by dim red lights. Dormer led them to a staircase at the end of the hall, just past A7 and A8. They descended two landings to another identical hallway, labels beginning with B, and then another two, and again. The staircase ended at bottom of the eighth landing, at a single steel door, labelled E0. Dormer began to fumble with the number pad mounted on the wall beside it.

He punched in a code, and the pad responded with two unpleasant beeps. Dormer growled and clenched his teeth.

"No access?" asked Seren, annoyed.

"Just do your thing," replied Dormer, equally annoyed.

Seren pulled out a poké ball, and called forth a rotom. The walls lit up in a flickering light from the little pokémon's electrical aura.

"Break us in, Tesla," said Seren.

The rotom replied with a cheery electric buzz, and vanished into the door in a flash of light. A rotom is a pokémon with a body composed of plasma, capable of living comfortably inside of an electrical system. Rotom are gentle, curious creatures, not likely to damage equipment unless they so choose. They were often employed by hackers to disable security systems, given that they could apply their powers in such a way to manipulate computers without concern for such silly things as administrative privileges.

Dormer went back to the number pad, and got a nasty shock. He yanked his hand away, shouted a curse, and started sucking on his fingers.

Marlo cringed. Seren laughed and called him an ass.

An alarm began to blare throughout the facility. Marlo instinctively reached for a poké ball, tense with anticipation.

"Don't worry," Dormer said, still sucking on his index finger. "No one is left to come after us."

Seren's rotom emerged from the door, and it slowly began to pull itself open. Bright lights turned on inside automatically. Within was a massive chamber that seemed to belie the close-quarters layout of the rest of the facility. The entire room must have been close to a thousand square feet. A round platform stood in the middle of the room, surrounded by an array of machines decorated with panels of buttons and levers and monitors. Cables as thick as a man's arm ran towards the platform's center, meeting each other at a tall door-frame-shaped structure rising from the floor.

Seren sauntered inside, his rotom floating erratically behind him, while Marlo stared in awe from the entrance, wondering just what the machine was supposed to do. Dormer wiped his fingers on his jeans and followed him. He approached one of the panels.

"Make yourselves comfortable, guys," he said, entering instructions at the terminal, "We'll be here for a while."

Seren strolled around the room, his rotom darting curiously about. Machines began to hum and whir.

"How long is a while?" he asked, "Hours? Days?"

"A while," Dormer repeated, sharply.

"You have no idea, do you?"

"Shut the fuck up," barked Dormer as he moved about the panels, pressing buttons and flipping switches, "You want to help? Go with the girl to C7 and find me a bottle. Help yourself to anything in there."

"There's solid food in there too, right?"

"And put that rotom back in its ball – I don't want it fucking around with anything else in here."

Seren recalled his rotom and made his way back to the stairway, frustration bleeding through each step. He walked past Marlo without as much as a glance in her direction. Feeling unwelcome as Dormer worked, Marlo followed him upstairs, though she felt not much more welcome in Seren's company.

C7 was a storage room, lined with rows of shelves and racks of foodstuffs. Gallons of water, packages of dehydrated meals, and a sMarlol selection of liquor. Seren found a half-empty whiskey bottle, took a swig, and offered the bottle to Marlo. She politely declined. He shrugged, made a joke about having more for himself, and then made his way around the shelves to find some dinner. She was uncomfortable drinking on a mission, and even more so drinking alone with him. Seren found a bag of barbeque flavored potato chips, and promptly attacked it. Marlo looked for something other than junk food, rapidly remembering how hungry she was.

"We should probably bring him something to eat too," said Seren as he sat on the floor and folded his legs, "You don't want that guy drinking on an empty stomach."

"He doesn't seem happy."

"Of course he's not happy. Now he has to work."

"What is he even trying to do?"

"His best – which isn't very good," he replied without an ounce of humor.

Marlo rolled her eyes, "No, I mean – to what end?"

Seren put a handful of chips in his mouth and washed it down with another swig, "I don't know, and I really don't fucking care."

Marlo was sorry she had asked. It was often said that The Collapse changed people. Indeed, optimism did not come easily to survivors of the apocalypse. Society as anyone had known it crumbled to dust, and with it fell countless lives. Every survivor had lost almost everyone they had ever known. Trauma drove men mad and desperation turned them evil. Marlo wondered what Seren and Dormer had been like in their old lives.


	2. The Fat of the Land

Jaden

The factions that rose to power following The Collapse functioned as independent political entities. Each faction controlled its own territory, and was headed by officers who commanded strong pokémon. People who had been pokémon trainers in just about any capacity comprised military power. Other members were typically builders, producers, and scavengers. Anyone who sought a faction's protection committed themselves to its ranks, and contributed to the community in any way possible. All factions shared a common goal: survival. Jaden was a member of The Falling Stars. He had been assigned to a small party to salvage supplies. Factions often sent agents into the derelict towns and cities in search of food, medicine, tools, and the like. It was treacherous work – ultra beasts were brazen creatures. And any seemingly abandoned house or school or windmill or lighthouse could be sheltering brigands.

The orange glow of dusk was sinking beneath the horizon as the indigo sky began to fade, revealing the first stars of the evening over the cul-de-sac. It was a cute little community lined with a series of identical homes. They were white houses, with grassy yards and large window panes for bright, airy interior layouts. They had certainly been prettier in their prime, in the days before the lawns had grown three feet high. The contents of houses such were worth more than gold. Many of them were even equipped with backup generators, and retained refrigerated goods to the present day.

Jaden sat in the back of the black SUV, parked in the middle of the asphalt circle, legs dangling over the edge. Behind him stood a measly stockpile of packaged foods and bottled water. A front door opened and Penny emerged cradling three huge frozen steaks in her arms, her cyndaquil, Cinnamon, following closely behind. She was a short, petite girl of sixteen with lily-white skin, a waist-length cascade of wavy copper-colored hair, innocent icy blue eyes, and at least ten thousand freckles. She shot a big grin towards Jaden, in silent celebration of her finding.

"Where were those?" he asked, impressed.

"There was a freezer behind the water heater."

"I thought we'd gotten it all," he went on as he slid a cooler from the pile behind him towards Penny. He opened it to reveal a chest full of ice, and some frozen poultry, and helped her unload her haul.

"That's because you don't look hard enough," she teased, grinning.

"You have a good eye."

Penny threw her gaze up at the blackening sky, "One thing I like, is how you can see way more stars now. Have you noticed that?"

"Yeah. It's nice." He had not.

It was initially Jaden's suggestion to bring Penny along for scavenging. He had pleaded with his superiors that she was a deceptively strong trainer, and deserved the opportunity to prove her usefulness. In truth, he only wanted to take her on missions with him.

"Let's find the others," said Jaden as he hopped to the ground, swung the SUV's back cover closed behind him, and made for the driver seat.

Penny scooped up her cyndaquil from the ground and cradled it in her arms, making her way to the passenger seat. Jaden started the engine. They drove out of the cul-de-sac, windows down, up the street, around the corner, and found a white SUV lazily parked half in the street and half in a driveway. Two more agents, Carter and Lilith, emerged from the house to which it belonged, empty-handed. Carter was about thirty, tall, sinewy, and blond with blue eyes that never seemed fully open but missed nothing, and a scruffy beard of brown and yellow and red. Lilith was about twenty, a slender olive-skinned woman, green-eyed with full breasts, straight jet black hair that fell to her narrow waist, and a face that seemed to condemn everything she saw. A man's gaze did not easily escape her. Carter approached Jaden's car as Lilith opened the passenger door of the other car and hopped in, appearing not to notice them.

"How was your haul?" asked Jaden.

"Miserable," replied Carter, flatly, "People have been here before. Half of the houses have nothing. You?"

"We found frozen meat in two houses."

"Nice."

"Should we call it a day?"

"I need to hit a recharging station. There's one not too far out of the way from here. It probably wouldn't be a bad idea for you either."

Jaden glanced at the battery level of his car, "Yeah, you're right."

Carter went back to his car, pulled out onto the street, and then he was off, Jaden following a short distance behind. They drove out of the suburbs onto a lonely country road, rolling green fields on either side, with the occasional barn or grain silo in the distance. These had once been farms, but years of neglect allowed nature to reclaim the land. Penny stared out the window with her cyndaquil on her lap, her head following this and that as things came into view and then disappeared behind them. Jaden wanted to start a conversation, but remained silent for lack of a topic that Penny was likely to find interesting. He cursed himself silently. He had four years on her – entertaining her _should_ be easy.

The glow of the day had all but faded by the time they reached the charging station. It was a small white building on a patch of asphalt just off the side of the road. A large canopy hung above the recharging area, where cars were parked and connected to the massive batteries beneath the ground. Carter pulled in, and Jaden followed. The cars stopped, and the drivers exited. They each extended a cord from their car, and linked it to a receptacle on the charging station.

Jaden glanced at the building behind them. He considered suggesting to search the inside, when the double doors swung open and all thoughts were flung from his head.

Two men emerged from inside with unfriendly faces. They were each probably in their forties. One was fat and bald with arms like bags of rocks. The other was slim with thin black hair brushed back, and wore an eye patch. Jaden took a quick look around – there were no other cars in sight.

Carter stepped towards them, "Can I help you gentlemen?" he asked, sharply.

"Yes you can," replied the fat one, just as sharply, "We're not giving away power for free."

"We don't want any trouble," warned Jaden.

"Neither do we," replied the fat one, amused. "We just want something for what you're taking."

"You really have no idea who I am, so I'm going to give you two one more chance to fuck off," growled Carter, reaching into his coat pocket.

Lilith emerged from the passenger seat and took her place next to Carter. The men's faces lit up as if they had never seen a woman.

The thin man laughed, "Is she going to fight too?"

Her eyes flared into a green rage.

"By myself I could tear you faggots to pieces," she hissed.

"I'll tell you what," the fat one went on tauntingly, "Leave the girl here and we'll let you charge your cars for free."

The thin one laughed again.

Lilith drew a poké ball and opened it, calling out a swampert. The creature materialized with a throaty cry. The men drew their own poké balls. The fat one sent out a roaring nidoking, the thin one a screeching victreebel. Carter called out a bronzong, which emerged from its capsule with a deep non-organic buzz. In an instant, the victreebel extended a flurry of vines and wrapped itself around Lilith's swampert, constricting it. The amphibian strained and struggled in its grasp. The fat man shouted an order, and his nidoking belched fire at Carter's bronzong, illuminating the area in a red-orange glow.

Lilith shouted "Ice beam!" and her swampert launched a cruel cold blast towards the flytrap pokémon. The victreebel cringed and screeched as the heat left its body and frost covered its leafy skin. It retracted its vines, overcome with pain. Carter commanded his bronzong to attack. It rose to the air above the flames, eyes glowing pink and purple. The air became wavy, as it exerted an extrasensory attack on the nidoking. The monster lurched and struggled and the flames dissipated, as the psychic pokémon struck and beat at it with an invisible force.

Carter and Lilith's pokémon were plainly stronger, and it was palpable on their opponents' faces. The two men continued to shout commands, but the bronzong and swampert had taken the offensive, and their own pokémon could do little to defend themselves. The victreebel fell first, collapsing to the ground in a slump of leaves and vines.

"Send it flying!" commanded Carter.

The bronzong cried out in its queer buzz once again, and focused its psycho kinetic energy to lift the nidoking from the ground, and launched it over the charging station. The creature groaned meekly as it sailed through the air, and then crashed into the ground somewhere on the other side of the building. By now, they had clearly rued their decision.

Jaden stepped forward, ultra ball in hand, "Got anymore pokémon? I want to have some fun too."

"Alright, this time you can charge up for free," the fat man said, much too confidently for the situation he was in.

"My bronzong could pull your spine out through your mouth if I told it to," Carter warned.

The two men glared wordlessly in a queer blend of rage and fear.

"This station is ours now," added Lilith.

"This is where we live, bitch!" shouted the thin one.

"You really want to die for this place?" replied Lilith as she rested a hand on her swampert's head.

"Go! Now!" yelled Carter as his bronzong floated beside him, ready for another command.

The thin man recalled his defeated victreebel to its poké ball, and then followed the fat one behind the building, howling curses and threats all the while. A flash of light appeared on the other side as the fat one recalled his broken nidoking, and then they began their trudge into the dark grassy field beyond.

Lilith returned her swampert to its poké ball. Finally, Penny emerged from the car with Cinnamon in her arms, visibly shaken. She set the little creature on the ground and joined the others.

Lilith turned towards Penny with a face that cut right through her, "Now you make an appearance? Now?"

Penny was wordless – icy blue eyes wide with shame. She opened her mouth as if to speak, but remained silent nonetheless.

Lilith went on, "The next time something like this happens and you stay hidden, I'm going to drag you out of your little hole and slap the shit out of you." She spit the words as if they were poison.

"Lilly!" shouted Jaden in Penny's defense.

"Shut the fuck up," she barked, storming through the double doors into the station building.

Carter sighed and shook his head, pressing a palm to his brow. Jaden chewed his lip. Lilith had a point – he had feared that Penny would not be able to pull her weight. She was the only one of the four who had no battling experience. Carter, Lilith, and Jaden had all been accomplished trainers in the old world. Carter followed her inside. They flicked on the lights to find a general store lined with rows and freezers of foodstuffs: snack foods, instant meals, frozen meat, water, soda, and miscellaneous supplies galore.

They discovered a trapdoor behind the counter, with a ladder leading to a basement featuring more supplies, a television, and four cots. At Carter's suggestion, they filled their cars with as much supplies as they could stuff inside. The SUV's reached capacity, and the indicators beeped to affirm that the batteries had been fully charged. Penny took her place with her cyndaquil in the passenger seat. Jaden swung the trunk closed, and then approached the double doors of the station building, where Carter and Lilith stood with the bronzong levitating nearby.

Carter turned to Lilith, "I'm staying here. Go back to base with Jaden and Penny, and tell Karina what we've found. I'm not leaving this place until we can take every morsel of food and every ounce of electricity."

"I'm staying with you," she said defiantly.

"No, Lil, I need you to take the car back. Penny can't drive."

Lilith rolled her eyes, "Of course she can't."

Jaden ignored her. "You're going to be alright by yourself?" he asked.

"If those shits think they're coming back here anytime soon, I'll set a feast for the birds."

His bronzong buzzed in agreement.

Jaden unplugged his car and took his place in the driver seat. Lilith pulled out from the station first, racing down the road with no attention to the rest of the team. Penny sat with her cyndaquil sleeping on her lap, head sunk downward, still wounded by Lilith's words. He pulled onto the road, in no hurry to catch up with the faint taillights slipping further away in the night. The car fell to silence, and minutes seemed as hours as Jaden drove them through the dark country roads.


	3. An Unknown Threat

Shay

Kings rose and fell over the years, but the castle stood through it all. It was a massive granite structure situated in the mountains, snow-capped peaks rising in all directions as if the earth were offering a second line of defense. A seventy foot five-sided wall surrounded the ancient fort, marked by one portcullis and round towers at each corner standing a good thirty feet higher. Within laid a grassy courtyard with a cobblestone path leading to the oaken iron-studded front double doors. The castle was pentagonal, much like the walls, with its own set of five towers of which four stood no less than one hundred fifty feet tall, with one tower in the back rising fifty feet higher than the others – the King's Seat. The castle was thousands of years old, but had been refurbished in modern times to house the regional Pokémon League. Many a trainer had dedicated their lives to reaching the tallest tower, where the champion defended his title. The castle was accessible by land only through a treacherous path leading through crag and cave that had been called Victory Road. Following The Collapse, the Pokémon League became the base of the Valiant Undying faction. No longer did the strongest trainers fight for glory, but for survival.

Cheers and jeers filled the King's Seat as the battle raged on. There had been differences regarding the leadership, which for pokémon trainers meant battle. The interior was a modern arena that belied the rococo look of the castle, featuring mounted displays offering a variety of views to the spectators arranged in an elevated circle around the arena. Shay and Damon stood at opposite ends, their pokémon fighting ruthlessly. The match began at dusk, and they had been battling well into the night.

"Close combat!" cried Shay as his staraptor, Ace, dove from the air and pecked and beat at his opponent without mercy.

Damon's lucario was clearly exhausted. It attempted to slip away, but the falcon pokémon was relentless, and far too quick. It flinched and cried out under the sudden flurry of attacks.

"Extreme speed!" commanded Damon.

His lucario dove downward toward its opponent, slipping away underneath the bird. Before Ace could turn to continue his assault, the jackal pokémon assumed an offensive stance and threw its body forward with speed that far exceeded the human eye. The bird cried out, filling the chamber with a high-pitched squawk. It flapped its wings and rose into the air, hopefully higher than its opponent could reach.

"Brave bird!" shouted Shay.

"Ice punch!" replied Damon.

Ace soared to the top of the chamber and aimed himself downward. In an instant, he dove once more towards its opponent. Damon's lucario widened its legs and prepared to strike.

The crowd fell silent as the two pokémon met each other in a crash. There was a flash of light as the lucario struck with a fist imbued with a strange energy that seemed to drain the heat from the room.

The roars and shouts returned just as quickly as they had faded while they clashed, and staraptor and lucario alike collapsed to the ground in a draw. The monitors displayed the pokémon's portraits alongside health indicator bars, and dropped them to zero. Shay clenched his teeth – both he and his opponent had been reduced to their last pokémon. Shay had been a member of the regional elite four, whereas Damon had been the champion. He had never come closer to usurping the title. They each returned their pokémon to their capsules, and then prepared to send forth their final combatants.

Shay's heart raced, his hands having lost all feeling. Victory would convey to him leadership of the entire faction. First, Damon called out his blaziken, just as he had anticipated. The proud rooster pokémon materialized in a fighting stance, spectators roaring in his favor. Shay held his ultra ball to his face and offered the capsule a light kiss of good luck.

"I'm counting on you!" he cried as he hurled the ball into the air, releasing his zapdos, Zeius.

The chamber was drowned in shouts and cheers, as the audience looked on in awe at the legendary pokémon. The monitors updated with portraits of the new fighters, each with a full health bar.

Blazikens fought primarily with physical strikes. His best course of action for now was to keep distance.

"Thunder wave!" commanded Shay, hoping to incapacitate his opponent's pokémon with a paralyzing shock.

The air crackled as the bird pokémon sent an electric current in all directions. Damon's blaziken jumped and veered, narrowly avoiding each bolt that lurched its way.

"Blaze kick!" shouted Damon.

Zeius ceased his attack, and its opponent crouched for a moment, before launching himself into the air with its powerful legs, loosing fire from its feet. The zapdos flapped his wings and dove to the side, just barely evading the fire attack. The blaziken flipped in the air and landed on his feet.

Shay shouted another command, "Drill peck!"

The thunderbird pokémon made a half circle in the air and began to spin his whole body, aiming for the rooster. Shay clenched his teeth in frustration as its target leapt from harm's way at the last moment, as Zeius rebalanced himself in the air and rose up once again.

Damon pressed his forefinger to the green mega ring on his wrist, and the blazikenite banded around his pokémon's leg began to glow. The chamber was drowned in light and cacophony as spectators cheered for the much anticipated mega evolution. Shay had been expecting as much. The light faded, and the newly transformed mega blaziken created a stream of fire from his mouth towards its avian opponent. The thunderbird managed to dive downwards to safety, and then the rooster launched itself into the air once more. At Shay's command, his zapdos attacked with a barrage of lightning, briefly loosing another blitz of electricity before being stifled by a swift fire-kick to the head. The two pokémon clashed repeatedly, as the arena was strafed by relentless bolts of lightning and cruel blasts of fire. Damon's mega evolved blaziken moved faster than the human eye could register, and Shay could scarcely keep up with the fight. Zeius rose and dove through the air, sending lightning in all directions, clearly outmatched by its much more agile opponent.

Finally, the bird fell. Spectators howled as the health indicator bar beneath the portrait of zapdos dropped. Shay sighed heavily as he recalled his pokémon to his capsule and dropped his head in defeat. His best efforts time and time again proved no match for mega evolution.

The mega blaziken devolved to his original form in a flash of light before Damon returned it to its poké ball. He stepped towards his opponent, and Shay reluctantly did the same. They met in the center of the arena and shook hands over a battle well fought. The monitors displayed Damon's portrait, declaring the standing champion to be the winner once again. He was twenty eight years old, with a strong jaw and a hooked nose. He shaved his face and head every day, as he had been doing since his hairline had begun to recede.

The crowd's energy waned. Having seen everything, members of the audience fanned out and made their way to the gaping arch at the end of the chamber, which lead to a great spiral stone brick staircase that encompassed the length of the tower. With a heavy heart, Shay congratulated his opponent on defending his title once again. Clara, his sister, appeared from the spectator's platform and rushed into the arena towards him. She was an energetic girl with a round face that made her look much younger than her seventeen years. She shared her brother's pale skin, and hazel eyes. Her soft brown hair fell just past her shoulders. She sprinted right to him with arms extended, and threw her entire weight at him with a hug. Shay flinched and staggered, and then finally returned her gesture with his arms around her.

"You were awesome."

"Not awesome enough," he replied, dead pan.

"Oh shut up," she teased, "It was so close."

He knew that was true, and it ate him alive. Porter and Rose approached from the crowd, two of the other three elite four members. Porter was a massive man of about sixty, with a bald pate and a great thick white beard, and deep blue eyes that had seen the ends of the Earth. He was expressionless, as always. Rose was a woman of about thirty, tall and thin with crisp gray eyes and bright yellow hair tied back into a pony tail. Her mouth was twisted in a sort of smirk that seemed to say that she had foreseen the outcome. Shay did not like that.

"Got something to say, Rose?"

"Nope," she replied, her tone itself a taunt.

With nothing left to say, Damon took his leave among the crowd, followed shortly thereafter by Porter and Rose. Shay remained planted at the arena, awash in his failure as the battle replaying relentlessly in his mind, and he kicked himself for all of the wrong decisions here and there that must have cost him the match.

Clara threw a playful punch at his shoulder to bring him back to Earth, and Shay realized that only he and his sister remained in the King's Seat. "Come on, I want to go to bed."

He placed his hand on top of her head and gave her hair a tussle. Often he wished that he had inherited the same mindless optimism that seemed to fuel her each and every day. Finally, Shay made way for the exit with leaded legs, followed by his sister. They descended the great spiral steps alone to their shared chamber.

He was battling again in his dreams, spectators bellowing from all directions. He shouted commands, and his pokémon fought. Zeius soared and dove, strafing with lightning from above. Damon's blaziken was a dark, formless and quick, and then something else entirely. The roar of the spectators faded to nothing. His opponent was but a shade. He looked to the spectators, hoping to see his sister, but he only found a blue and bloated audience, with gaping mouths and hollow, lifeless eyes. His zapdos dropped from the sky with a fatal squawk. Shay sprung into the arena to help his fallen thunderbird. He crouched and reached for its head to pick up its face, only for the bird to dissolve away at his touch.

Much of the castle was littered with tents housing lower ranking members, and solitude was scarce within the walls. Shay could feel the eyes on him the next day as he traversed through the corridors to the council chamber, catching glances and hearing whispers of gossip around every turn. His name had been known by the whole region even before The Collapse, and even those who had not watched the battle in the King's Seat were certainly soon to learn that he had once again failed to defeat the champion – as anyone probably would have expected. Were it not for the emergency meeting called at the crack of dawn, which almost certainly did not deserve his attention, he would have gladly burned the day away in bed.

The council chamber was beautiful and baroque, ornamented with priceless paintings and white marble sculptures. The room was aglow with the colors of the late afternoon sun's light spilling through the stained glass windows depicting mythological scenes along the west wall. A massive rectangular black marble table stood at the center, surrounded by five ornate oak chairs. Shay may as well have been a ghost as he entered through the heavy oak doors. Damon sat at the furthest end, brooding silently with his arms crossed as Porter and Rose sat at opposite sides, with Burron seated closest to the entrance in a chair with his back turned. He was a thin man of twenty seven, with copper-colored skin, and a thick head of curly black ringlets. His face was fixed in a permanent smirk, as though the world had some hidden quality of humor that only he could see. Shay felt the tension in the air as the council argued with solemn faces.

"You're talking about surrender!" bellowed Porter, "Without any fight at all!"

"I'm talking about survival!" replied Rose, in that shrill yelling voice of hers.

"So am I!" returned Porter.

Shay approached the table, taking his seat between Porter and Burron.

"There's our little runner-up," taunted Burron, finally acknowledging him.

"Why are we here?" asked Shay, flatly.

"A pidgeot arrived in the night with a letter," replied Damon, his voice heavy with stress, as he revealed a folded piece of paper and tossed it towards him. It landed on the table, and Shay scooped it up and unfolded it to find a handwritten message.

_"To the administration of Valiant Undying,_

_The Void Talkers hereby declare dominion over all other factions, and by extension the entire world. An envoy has been dispatched to your location to accept your surrender, and is expected to arrive within thirty days. Valiant Undying shall be dissolved and its members inducted to the Void Talkers. Should you choose to resist, then we will destroy your castle and kill your administrators, and your surviving members will be inducted to the Void Talkers nonetheless."_

Shay raised an eyebrow. He had never heard of a faction called the Void Talkers.

"It's not difficult," said Porter, "When this envoy shows up, we tell him to go fuck himself. And if he doesn't like that, then I'll fuck him myself."

"Are you stupid?" snapped Rose, "They're going to kill us!"

"They can sure as shit try."

"But why should we take this threat seriously?" chimed Shay, "We've never even heard of these guys."

Rose went on, "Why would they do this if they didn't think they were stronger? We were the regional Pokémon League – they know who they're dealing with!"

"If they've contacted other factions, they won't be fighting just us," offered Burron, "We can form an alliance—"

Rose interrupted, "And how did that go the last time we tried?"

"It's not the same," he replied, "If they've been threatened by the same party, they'd be stupid not to want to pool their strength with ours."

"We have no idea what's been going on in other regions. For all we know, enough factions have already surrendered to them that they outnumber us ten to one – we don't know what we're dealing with!"

Finally, with his forefingers to his temples, Damon boomed, "Exactly! We don't know! Which is why we need to learn!"

"And how are we going to do that?" asked Burron.

"By shutting the hell up and letting me think for one fucking minute."

The council fell silent. Never before had Valiant Undying been faced with such a threat.


	4. Out of the Blue

Jaden

The day was overcast. Black clouds loomed to the east, while Jaden hoped for the patches of blue on the western horizon. The Falling Stars were based in the town of Pinehaven nestled in the foothills. Quaint pine log houses were sparsely spread among rolling green hills and an encircling curtain of evergreens. To the north stood the mountains – a series of great cliffs and gray peaks topped with white. The town had little to speak of other than its Pokémon League Gym. Karina, the gym leader, had been one of the most respected pokémon trainers in the region before The Collapse, and had since come to be the leader of the Falling Stars.

Lilith never missed an opportunity to complain. She had apparently given Karina a very detailed and probably very opinionated account of their most recent excursion upon her return to base. The following morning, she was redeployed to the charging station with two other trainers to claim its riches in the faction's name. Doubtlessly, Jaden and Penny had been removed from Carter's salvaging team at her suggestion.

Jaden and Penny stood opposite each other at the forest's edge. The pines shifted and rustled gently as a soft southerly breeze flowed through the woods. In the interest of Penny's confidence in the field, sparring had been Jaden's idea, and her qualms about the prospect were growing increasingly palpable. She held her poké ball uncertainly, tense with anticipation. Jaden called out his grovyle, Koko, and she replied with her heatmor, Sniffer.

The grass lizard dashed and jumped about the trees, loosing razor leafs and hurling broken branches, while the opposing heatmor waddled in circles on the ground. At Penny's command, her anteater spat flames here and there, but the target was too quick. The nimble lizard strode through the thorny canopy with ease, dodging blasts of fire. Penny's tension seemed to wane as her energy rose, and her feelings of uncertainty burned away with her pokémon's relentless attacks. Jaden liked her much better this way.

Jaden ordered Koko to use leaf blade, and the green gecko lunged from the treetops. Sniffer staggered back. She commanded a fire spin attack, and it loosed a stream of flames to trap its foe in place, but Jaden's grovyle was too quick. With one graceful bound, the grass lizard leaped above the blazing flames and over the heatmor's head, swiping a cruel slash. The anteater screeched in pain as Koko landed on her feet behind it. Penny shouted another command, and her pokémon spun around, spewing a fiery barrage. The lizard was once again too quick, ducking beneath the flaming stream and diving at her foe's feet. Sniffer's flamethrower attack was stifled to wavy embers as Jaden's grovyle toppled her opponent. The anteater collapsed on his back, with his opponent standing on his belly. Koko raised a leaf blade to the heatmor's neck, ready for a fatal strike.

"That's enough," said Jaden, and his pokémon backed away.

Frustration plain on her face, Penny recalled her heatmor to its poké ball, and called out her flareon, Piper, with a loud grunt. Jaden had always found Penny's stubbornness to be one of her most attractive qualities.

The fox pokémon assumed an offensive stance, growling. Jaden's grovyle hurled another barrage of razor leafs and then disappeared once again into the forest canopy. Penny shouted commands, the air waving in the heat as her pokémon spewed geysers of flame, all the while dodging projectiles from above. Piper's fire was much more stable and even seemed hotter than her heatmor's. Koko was certainly having a much harder time.

Jaden ordered a slash attack, and Koko dropped at her opponent, blade ready. Penny shouted for a fire blast. Jaden shielded his eyes against the blinding light as her flareon conjured a massive ball of fire and blanketed surrounding area in heat. He shouted for his pokémon to get back. There was a blast. The light faded, the air cooled, and Jaden's grovyle lay defeated on the ground with Penny's flareon standing above her, victorious.

Jaden returned Koko to her poké ball as Penny lit up.

"I did it! I actually did it!"

She crouched as Piper leaped into her arms and licked at her face, sharing in the joy. The fox pokémon spun in place and sat, resting against his trainer, while she patted its head and played with its fur.

"You almost started a forest fire," Jaden teased, "But otherwise you were awesome."

She shrugged, "You're the one who wanted to do this in the woods. You know all of my pokémon are fire-type."

Penny tousled the fur on her flareon's head one last time as she stood up, then returned him to his poké ball.

"You don't want to keep going?"

"One pokémon was the deal. Besides, it looks like it's going to rain."

Jaden checked the sky and conceded that they should get indoors. Clouds had darkened to a threatening hue, and the blue patches of sky in the west were gone.

"Dinner at my place?" asked Jaden.

"What's for dinner?"

"Remember those steaks you found?"

"Dinner at your place," she agreed.

A light drizzle began as they made their way back into town. Hardly anyone was outside. There were no more weather reports – and by the doctrine of Murphy's Law, only a fool would underestimate the cruelty of Mother Nature. Jaden's cabin was a pine log house situated just a stone's toss from the gym. It was a cozy, simple little place. The first floor featured a living area with a television and a couch, some bookshelves, and a dining table with four chairs. A kitchen area was separated by a long countertop island extending from the wall. The bathroom was underneath the staircase, which led to an attic-bedroom. The cabin had belonged to someone who was not lucky enough to survive The Collapse, but was redistributed to Jaden following the formation of The Falling Stars, since he had only been in town to challenge Karina for a gym badge. Penny had her own cabin, too, which used to belong to her family.

Scavengers were expected to contribute to the faction stockpile, but that stopped no one from keeping at least some of the best finds for themselves. Jaden defrosted the steaks overnight, and had been marinating them all day in soy sauce. He broiled them in his oven, and served them with a side of potatoes that he had chopped, seasoned, and baked. It was night by the time they finished eating and the kitchen cleaned. The drizzle had become a hard rain, which was good – Penny was not likely to want to leave in bad weather.

With nowhere else to go, and much less to occupy their time, they found themselves on opposite ends of the couch in front of a blank television screen, with Penny's cyndaquil resting on her lap. Television broadcasting was no more, so Jaden maintained a collection of movies and television. By now, Jaden and Penny had seen everything too many times.

"I wonder how many steaks there are left in the world now," Penny joked.

"I don't know, but all of the meat has been synthetic for years and years," replied Jaden, "The processing plants still exist, there's just no one operating them. If you could reactivate the machines, you could make more."

"We should do that instead of breaking into people's houses for scraps of food."

"Well it's not like anyone's living in them anymore."

Penny laughed. Jaden wanted to put his arm around her, but he dared not. She was too young. It hardly made sense. She was as much an adult as nature could make her. Perhaps he could safely make a move if he knew that his affections would be reciprocated. He sometimes suspected her of having the same feelings for him, some glassy-eyed looks then and again, and sometimes when she seemed just a bit too eager to be close to him, but he could never be sure. After all, he had become something of family to her. She had once told him that she thought of him as a brother, now that her real family was gone. He would never forgive himself if he managed to ruin that with the wrong move.

Finally, he reached his arm across her back, and rested his hand on her waist, and without hesitation, she moved in closer to lean on him, as if she had been waiting for an invitation. Penny went silent in Jaden's arms, and they sat for a while in each other's warmth and the blissful music of the rain. People might sneer, but what did it matter? She was as much a woman as she could be, as far as he was concerned.

Jaden heard a car engine approach, accompanied by the glow of headlights in his front window blinds. Cars were only used when necessary, so it must have been Carter and Lilith. Ominously, the high beams began to flick on and off repeatedly. Jaden tried to ignore it, but the flickering just would not quit. Annoyed, he apologized as he nudged Penny away and approached the window to pinch open a peephole through the blinds. A black hummer that most certainly was not owned by anyone in the Falling Stars was parked just outside the gym entrance, flashing its light through the double glass doors. The doors opened inward as Karina emerged, flanked on her sides by two of her honor guard trainers. The doors closed behind the three of them, and the car lights turned off. Jaden watched cautiously as four people all in black cloaks and masks exited the hummer.

The visitors took their places in front of their car, opposite Karina and her guard. Jaden heard yelling. Something was not right about this. The Falling Stars had fought bandits over the years, but they had never faced an enemy so brazen as to attack them at their own base.

Karina shouted something and tried to call a pokémon from her poké ball, but it did not seem to work. Her guardsmen followed suit, to no avail. They tried again, and again, until it was clear that their poké balls had all failed.

"What's going on?" asked Penny.

Jaden did not answer. He continued to peek through the blinds, dumbfounded. Their poké balls _failed_.

Two of the strangers drew obsidian black poké balls, overlaid with a neon blue grid pattern. Jaden's guts turned to water as two ultra beasts materialized from the capsules. They were ugly, orange insectoid creatures that stood upright on four legs. They were muscled to the teeth, bulging arms crossed in front of them. For someone to have tamed such a creature was unfathomable – it had been believed that ultra beasts could not be captured in poké balls of any caliber.

Penny pinched her own opening in the blinds for a look, and gasped at the sight. The masked strangers issued a command, and their beasts attacked Karina and her men. The monsters hurled their bodies forth, and threw their powerful arms with such savagery and speed that the human eye could scarcely keep pace. One of them grabbed a guard's face, and pulled it off as though it had not even been attached. Penny gasped as they were mangled in all but an instant. Karina tried to run back inside the gym, but then one of the creatures grabbed her from behind by the biceps. With one outward yank, it pulled her arms right from their sockets. Karina dropped to the ground, screaming. Penny backed away from the window, hands pressed to her mouth, blue eyes spelling horror.

Jaden whipped around, "Give me Cinna's ball."

Wordlessly, she handed it to him, and he aimed it at her lazy hedgehog, still laying on the couch. The capsule failed to work, providing only a beep code. Penny raised a brow, puzzled. Whatever the invaders had done, Jaden and Penny's poké balls were affected too. Fighting was no option.

He opened the back window above the kitchen sink. His SUV was parked in the back. They could not leave through the front door – they would be seen. He grabbed the car keys, checked for all of his pokémon, and turned off the lights. They climbed through the window, and sprinted to the car. Jaden started the engine and bolted into the night with Penny still visibly shaken in the passenger seat, her cyndaquil cradled tightly in her arms. They soared through the town, past rows of log cabins, and then down the dirt road in the forest, bumping and skidding on the wet ground, praying that they would not be followed.


	5. Wastrels and Fools

Shay

The night was a bowl of stars, clear as glass, the crisp early spring air alive with a steady southerly breeze. Shay and his sister soared east on the back of his tropius, Mowi, which had been outfitted for travel with a saddle and reigns, and straps along his body and around his neck attaching bags stuffed to the brim with an assortment of provisions. With an unknown threat looming, Damon assigned each of the Elite Four to travel to known nearby factions in the interest of gathering intelligence, and possibly forging alliances. Factions typically did not affiliate with each other, but he hoped that the presence of a common enemy would make all the difference. Clara, thirsty for adventure, insisted that she would die if Shay did not take her, to which he replied partly in jest that she would probably die if he did, and that she should pack enough of her own supplies for at least a week's travel.

This was the third day of their journey. Their destination was a small coastal city called Benford in the neighboring region of Ontaukett. The White Lightning faction had apparently grown to control the entire city, and had since come to be known as the most powerful faction in its own region. Shay found the mission much too optimistic. Rose had a point, a party confident enough in its strength to threaten Valiant Undying was best not taken lightly. He had nothing but his word, and anyone could easily say that he had fabricated the entire story. Damon insisted that Shay's credibility was in his title, but Even if he was to be believed, and the threat taken seriously, he could not imagine that they would offer any help. White Lightning and Valiant Undying were based hundreds of miles from each other, and an alliance between them would offer nothing to either side but a promise of mutual protection.

They had been flying since dawn, and their mount was beginning to tire. Fretting the dark clouds that seemed to be approaching from the southern horizon, Shay made the call to descend for the night. They would set up camp, sleep until dawn, and then they would be off once again. The rural lands below grew gradually closer. Years of disuse had rendered the farms overgrown, as sprawling acres began to turn back into rolling plains. Clara pointed out a farmhouse in the distance as a possible shelter for the night. It was mostly intact, with some broken windows and a partially collapsed wooden porch. The rusted remains of an old windmill stood in front. A brown wooden barn stood in the distance, away from the road. Even before The Collapse, the place probably had not been in good condition. Shay was initially reluctant, but the threat of rain from the south swayed him to agree with his sister. He tugged the reigns and directed Mowi to pull to the left.

He landed his tropius in the grassy stretch between the house and the barn. They dismounted, and Clara started towards the house. Shay stopped her - they would spend the night in the barn. The house was as likely to have a bed and some supplies as it was likely to already be sheltering someone, and anyone who might call the place home was not likely to welcome strangers.

One of the barn doors had been swung open, but the other was nowhere in sight. Mowi ducked his head as he entered. The interior featured nothing more than a pile of straw and a rich, earthy smell. The tropius stepped around a bit, made a circle, found a comfortable spot, and plopped down. Clara threw herself into the hay beside him, reaching into the bags to rummage for something to eat. Shay laid down on top of Mowi with his arms folded behind his head, and closed his eyes.

It was still dark when he woke to Clara shaking him by the shoulder. Mowi was out cold. The barn was alive to the sound of rain, and Clara looked to have been outside. He pulled himself up and rubbed the sleep from his face. A girl who could not have been older than fifteen was huddled on the ground, soaking wet and covered in mud, by the entrance, peeking anxiously outside. Her face spelled hysteria.

"We have to take her with us," insisted Clara.

"What? What the hell are you—what?" replied Shay.

"Her name is Reya She said she was being chased. I told her we would take her to safety. She has no one – we can't leave her here."

Shay was exasperated. Only Clara could be such a righteous fool.

"Clara," he said, communicating as much frustration and disbelief as he could in just one word.

"We can't leave her all alone. She doesn't have anyone else. She'll die here."

"We're not here to pick up stragglers."

"Please take me with you," Reya pleaded, "They just showed up where we were living and started threatening us. We tried to fight them, but their pokémon were too strong. They killed two of my friends, so I ran away on my bike."

Shay did not want to say no. Valiant Undying would take her in without doubt, but the provisions at hand would not feed a third person for the remainder of the journey. Fortune willing, he could reach Benford before the end of the next day, but he could make no promises to refugees on behalf of White Lightning. Not all factions were so welcoming. The girl only stared at him with watery brown eyes, waiting for an answer. Mowi began to wake up.

"The thing is, Reya," he finally said, "We have a long way to travel, and we really don't have the provisions for three people."

"I won't eat – I won't take anything of yours."

Clara chimed in, "I'll give her half of my food. I don't care."

In front of their pitiful faces, Shay was without words. Shay chewed his lip. It was not a good move. Even beyond food and water, a refugee was a burden, especially one such as Reya who could not even command a pokémon to fight. She was a timid little thing, skinny, and helpless. She was truly pathetic. How could he deny her? Certainly, Clara would never forgive him if he did.

It was difficult to hear outside through the tapping of the rain against the barn, but he could identify voices outside, across the way by the farmhouse. He directed Mowi to stay put as he rushed to the door for a look outside. Four figures were standing by the side of road, inspecting a bicycle stuck upright in the mud. They could only have been the assailants who had been pursuing her. Lonely men, bored men, living their best lives after the apocalypse - a pretty little thing like her was not easy to let go. The stresses of survival truly turned men into beasts. Two of them got to work breaking down the front door of the house, and the other two started towards the barn.

"What's going on?" asked Reya.

"I think they've found you," said Shay, flatly.

She gasped, hands to her mouth, and retreated to the back of the barn as Clara rushed to her brother's side, poké ball in hand.

"Stay here and don't come out until I say so," he said, just before stepping out into the rain.

"Ho!" called one of them, "Who is that?"

"I'm Shay," he declared, "Who are you?"

"We're the Kings of the Crop," the other one answered proudly, "And you are trespassing in our territory."

Shay knew that name. The Kings of the Crop was a small faction of farmers based in the Alachia Region. In the early days following The Collapse, Valiant Undying had traded with them for food. What rationale they had for claiming territory almost two hundred miles away in the Ontaukett Region was beyond Shay's deduction.

"Sorry about that," Shay said disingenuously, "Had no idea."

The other two at the house started over to join them.

"Is this where you live?" asked the first man.

"No, I was only looking for a roof for the night. I'll be on my way just as soon as the weather improves."

"It's not that simple," he said with a smirk, "This is our land, which makes that our roof you're sleeping under. We've given you shelter, and shelter's not free. What do you have for us?"

Shay thrust his pelvis forward, and grabbed his crotch with one hand, "How's this?"

The two men each drew poké balls, fuming as the other two caught up with them.

"You'll regret that!" the first one yelled as he released an aggron from his great ball. The second one followed with a barbacle. The third and fourth followed suit with an arbok and an ariados. Clara rushed out from inside the barn, and answered with her houndoom, Princess. Shay hurled his ultra ball into the air, and his zapdos emerged from the ball with a squawk that must have carried for miles.

"Blitzkrieg!" Shay cried as Zeius rose to the air.

Shay found a great pleasure in watching all confidence drain from their faces as his zapdos illuminated the ground with a barrage of lightning. Before The Collapse, perhaps one in ten thousand people were fortunate enough to have ever seen a mythical creature like a zapdos. Far fewer could have said that they had fought against such an awesome pokémon. Thunder boomed among screams and desperate attack commands as the men and their pokémon were mercilessly electrocuted. By now they surely knew who he was.

The barbacle fell right away. The aggron stomped its foot, willing a boulder from the ground. It took it in hand, aiming a rock throw at Shay's thunderbird, but stumbled as the fire blast from Clara's houndoom exploded at the side of its head, dropping it into the grass and mud.

The arbok fell next. Zeius concentrated entirely on the aggron, soaring back and forth through the air, all the while throwing lightning. At Clara's directive, Princess charged at the ariados, barking wildly and spitting flames. She bounded on the spider pokémon, snapping fiery jaws at its exoskeleton. Its owner commanded it to fight back, but it could only screech in agony. The man who had commanded the arbok fell to the ground, unmoving, while the barbacle owner returned his fallen pokémon to its poké ball, and bolted back down the road. Frustration and regret was plain on the face of the aggron owner through flashes of light as his pokémon staggered under constant bolts of electricity from above.

"Rock slide!" he shouted, pointing at Clara.

The iron pokémon raised another boulder from the ground. Shay's heart stopped when he realized what was about to happen.

"Clara!" he cried as the rock sailed through the air towards his sister. He could do no more.

Clara's attention was on her houndoom. She did not seem to notice the boulder until it struck her somewhere between her shoulder and her breast, and knocked her flat to the ground. Princess rushed to her trainer, leaving a burned and battered ariados collapsed in the mud.

"Again!" he commanded, this time pointing at Shay.

Roaring, it prepared for another attack. There was a deafening squawk, Zeius brought up a powerful blast of electricity beneath the aggron, creating a lightning bolt reaching from the ground far into the clouds above. Finally, the iron beast fell. Having realized defeat, the final two Kings of the Crop hastily returned their pokémon to their capsules, and turned to run. With boiling blood, Shay sprinted after the aggron owner, and delivered his fist into the back of his head. The man collapsed face first into the mud, while his friend escaped down the road without as much as a glance back.

He punched him again, and again, and then he rolled him over on his back, and continued to punch him. He was a scrawny man, unshaven, with misaligned yellow teeth, concave cheeks and watery gray eyes. He may have been fifty, or sixty, and was dressed like a farmer, in a light pink button-down shirt, a denim jacket, and brown slacks. His red hat fell off, revealing a mostly bald scalp.

Shay stood up, panting as the rain fell around him. The man was motionless, mouth agape and face smeared with blood. Princess was still at Clara's side, sniffing and licking at her unresponsive face. Her left arm was crossed in front of her chest, shattered at the bicep. Zeius circled overhead, awaiting command.

"Thunderbolt!" he cried, and the man screamed as lightning surged through his body from above.

Mowi finally emerged from the barn, Reya huddled cautiously beside him with eyes of terror.

"Thunderbolt!" he cried again. The man screamed, weaker this time.

"Thunderbolt!"

"Thunderbolt!"

"Thunderbolt!"

"Thunderbolt!"

"Thunderbolt!"


	6. Trial by Fire

Carter

They were the Void Talkers, and they had come from nowhere. Carter's salvaging team had returned to base with a haul of supplies to find a small army in black cloaks and masks herding people out of their homes. They declared the Falling Stars conquered, and they offered a simple choice: surrender, or fight. Carter was sure that he had made the right decision when he noticed that Karina and Jaden were nowhere to be found.

It had been years since the gym was used for an actual battle. Karina always kept it pristine, in fond memory of the old world. The entire gym drank the light, a pitch black memento to her glory days of commanding her dark-type pokémon against trainers who wished to challenge the league. A series of platforms stood in random places, smooth rectangular blocks trimmed with neon glowing edges of various colors, rising from the floor in no particular arrangement, and sometimes overlapping. During official battles, the arena was darkened, so as to allow Karina's shadow-themed team to move about unseen before their opponents' eyes. The Void Talkers were practically invisible in their black cloaks and masks.

Carter and Lilith stood on opposite sides of the arena among some two dozen pensive and anxious trainers arranged in a line along the length of the walls. The Void Talkers needed people who commanded strong pokémon for something about which no one was answering questions. They had called themselves agents of the Falling Stars, so now they would be tested. It was strictly voluntary, but since civilians would be relocated to someplace west in the Navajo region, trainers were eager to prove their abilities. Black-cloaks guarded the exits, and the room was stagnant with the tension of the conquered exchanging nervous looks.

The audio system began to crackle, and a voice appeared on the speakers, "Each of you will now be given the opportunity to show your worth," the person used a voice modifier that made him sound like nothing organic. "The test is simple. Enemies will appear before you, and you must choose one pokémon to fight them. Each of you will be judged based on your pokémon's performance. Using more than one pokémon will result in an automatic failure."

Four black-cloaks stepped forward, and hurled peculiar black-and-green poké balls into the arena, landing them in random places among the platforms.

The voice resumed, "The test will begin in thirty seconds."

All guards stepped out, shutting the doors behind them. The air grew thick with tension, trainers watching with anticipation of what was to emerge. Some looked determined, but most wore their anxiety plain on their face. Carter reached for a poké ball at his belt, holding his breath for whatever was to follow. He had won a great victory in this arena once before, but the feeling was not at all nostalgic.

The strange capsules opened, and ten buzzwholes emerged from the queer green light in a screeching cacophony. Carter froze in the face of the alien creatures – no one had ever managed to capture an ultra beast inside of a poké ball. A few trainers ran screaming, finding the doors locked, others petrified with fear. Those who stood their ground called out their own pokémon, and the arena plunged into chaos as the ultra beasts descended upon them. The alien insectoids were ruthless, striking and smashing at their opponents as quickly as they appeared. One of them lifted Jeremy's ludicolo above its head, and then hurled it at him, sending trainer and pokémon tumbling into a slump. Owen called out his hypno, and commanded a psychic-type attack. The pokémon began to summon a psychokinetic force, only to be stifled in a chokehold from behind.

Carter pulled a capsule from his belt and called out his scizor, Mantis, who had the strongest beast-killing record of any pokémon of the Falling Stars. The metal pokémon clicked his pincers and buzzed his wings, ready for battle. Carter had fought worse battles than this. Buzzwholes were mighty creatures indeed, but their poor endurance made them vulnerable. A buzzwhole could beat a man to death, but it would expend all of its energy in doing so. All he needed to do was keep his pokémon on his feet, and he would survive.

A buzzwhole leaped shrieking from a platform, landing directly in front of Mantis as he widened his combat stance. The massive insectoid reeled back its arm in preparation for a punch, and was quickly swept away by a geyser of water from Lilith's milotic. Carter offered a nod of gratitude before turning his head to the source of a desperate human scream. Two buzzwholes had grabbed hold of Olly - one by the hips and the other by the pits of his arms. He was a boy of seventeen or maybe eighteen, one of the last-minute additions to the salvaging team. He yelled in agony as the beasts pulled his body in opposite directions over the body of his fallen ursaring. Carter wanted to help, but he knew better. The pitch of the boy's voice grew higher as he was pulled apart. Finally, with a wet, sickening crack, he split in half at the waist, loosing from his belly a cascade of gory entrails. Carter made himself look away - this was no time to mourn.

"Swords dance!" he commanded. Mantis clicked his pincers and sharpened his focus, preparing for the next foe.

The brawl raged on as pokémon and ultra beasts leaped and dropped wildly about the platforms, hurling fists and claws and fire and ice to the tune of scared, desperate battle commands. Carter began to back towards the wall, his scizor creeping alongside in rhythm to his steps. He knew the value of a wall in a fight. A trainer who rushes into battle is as brave as he is stupid, and stupid is deadly.

The limp, broken body of a fallen pachirisu sailed through the air, having been launched from somewhere on the other side of the platforms, and plopped on the matte black floor in front of them. Carter could only blink and wonder what poor fool had sent out such a weakling in a time like this. One of the beasts was scooped from the ground by a long, beige, serpentine tail tipped with beautiful patterns of red and black and blue. At Lilith's command, her milotic raised the wriggling bug into the air, and then slammed it into a second buzzwhole. The two insectoids collapsed to the ground, one on top of the other, as Eve's nidoqueen began to bathe the fallen creatures in fire at her command.

Another beast charged Carter's way.

"Aerial Ace!"

Mantis moved with speed beyond the human eye. In an instant, he was behind his foe, leaping into the air. Before his target could turn around, the scizor was dropping upon it with his pincers.

"Bullet punch!"

The buzzwhole took a swing, and Mantis ducked to avoid it, returning with a quick jab from an iron fist. The scizor recoiled as the air filled with light and heat - a stream of fire swept in from the side, enveloping ultra beast in. It shrieked and cried as it collapsed in the bath of the nidoqueen's flamethrower attack.

Bodies continued to fall. Carter could count three buzzwholes defeated, but the trainers and their pokémon were dropping just as easily. One of the beasts jumped from the top of a platform, grabbing a hold of Ed's fearow between its muscular arms and taking it to the ground. The bird fell limp as it was slammed to the ground beneath the weight of its attacker. Another one grabbed hold of Blaire's long, blonde hair and swung with such might to lift her right from the ground. She screamed for a brief instant before she hit the floor, the force of the impact breaking her neck with a nauseating snap.

"Horn drill!" commanded Eve, tears streaming down her face.

Her nidoqueen skewered another buzzwhole on its horn, spraying fluorescent yellow blood that seemed to glow in the black of the dark arena. Lilith's milotic had another one in her tail, and hurled it, slamming the insectoid creature against a platform wall. Perry's machoke threw punches left and right while Erik's electivire loosed lightning in all directions. Ed was sitting cross-legged with his forefingers to his temples, red-faced and bawling. A buzzwhole grabbed him from behind from the head, and he screamed in agony as it pressed, and pressed, until finally it crushed his skull like an egg. _This is no time to mourn._

"Aerial ace!" Carter commanded as he noticed another buzzwhole bounding over a low-standing platform, charging straight for them.

Mantis leaped forth, bearing pincers, and then dropped on his opponent with a slash from above. The alien insectoid staggered back for a moment, and then quickly shot back with two quick fists, slamming into the scizor's mineral exoskeleton and filling the air with deep metallic clangs. The steel-clad bug fought back with steel fists, to little avail. A second buzzwhole came charging from the side, throwing its whole body forward and tackling Mantis to the ground. The new foe pummeled its steel-type opponent mercilessly with a flurry of fists, while the first set sights on Carter. With one swift strike to the stomach, Carter was on his back. The blow stunned his diaphragm, leaving him curled on the floor, unable to breathe. For a moment he could have sworn to know the cold embrace of death as all heat seemed to drain from the air. He looked up at his alien assailant just as a stream of freezing air swept it from its feet. Eve's nidoqueen stomped towards them, blasting the beasts with an ice beam attack. The beam faded, and the other buzzwhole quickly lost interest in Mantis. It rose and charged forth to meet its poison-type challenger, only to be knocked flat to the ground by a blast of water from Lilith's milotic.

Gasping for air, Carter struggled to pull himself from the floor, stumbling to his pokémon's side.

"Talk to me, buddy," he said in a breathless rasp.

Mantis clicked and moaned in response as he pulled himself to his feet. Three others and their pokémon remained standing and fighting against the last two buzzwholes: Erik with his electivire, Eve with her nidoqueen, and Lilith with her milotic. The beasts huddled at each other's backs as the trainers closed in around them, commanding attacks. Under a torrent of water, lightning, and fire, they finally fell.

Silence fell over the arena as they composed themselves. Slowly regaining his breath, Carter surveyed the arena. Limp, maimed bodies of trainers, pokémon, and ultra beasts alike were sprawled haphazardly about the room, dead or dying. Someone had soiled themselves – he could smell it. Erik had taken a blow to the forehead, and was bleeding over his right eye. Eve stepped away, towards the wall, wearing a face that had seen hell itself. Even Lilith looked distraught as she compulsively tried to flatten the frizz from her hair with her hands. Erik's electivire suddenly pounded its fists to its chest, bellowing in victory. A score of trainers had just been slaughtered in minutes. It was no victory, it was a massacre – and to what end?

Erik wandered towards the center of the arena, walking in an odd, serpentine path in such a way to avoid stepping over anyone's body. He picked up one of the peculiar poké balls that had released the ultra beasts and pushed his shaggy yellow hair out of his eyes as began to inspect it through his square thick-framed glasses. It was a glossy black thing, patterned with a green grid. Eve's nidoqueen lowered to all fours and gingerly approached its trainer, moaning in sympathy as the pale, skinny, black-ponytailed girl pressed her hands to her face and began to sob.

The doors swung open, and three black cloaks entered. The one in the middle wore a white sash over his shoulder, probably to indicate some elevated rank.

The voice appeared on the speakers again, "Please, approach if you are able."

Carter and Lilith exchanged an uneasy look, before hesitantly approaching, followed shortly by Erik. Owen moaned pitifully, slumped against a platform with mangled legs, and Perry strained to stand up, only to quickly collapse, planting his face on the floor. Finally, Eve approached, her face pointed downward, lining up with the other three. No one else appeared to be alive.

He spoke, "Four?"

No one answered him.

"Well then, congratulations. You will be initiated to the Void Talkers."

The four survivors exchanged uneasy glances, hoping to find something reassuring in each other's faces as they began to realize that the chaos had barely begun.


	7. Worlds Beyond

Marlo

Marlo had originally set out with Seren and Dormer with healthy caution, sprinkled with unease. The tension had since faded as their mission began to enter a fifth day of the doldrums. She was free to wander the facility at her leisure, but not to go outside under any circumstances. Fed up with Seren's infinite cascade of questions and japes, Dormer had locked himself in the lowermost chamber on the second day with a sleeping bag, a bottle of whiskey, and a bottle of bourbon, pressing and switching away at machine dashboards and terminals to an end he would not explain, and emerging only for meals. As he worked, the machines sometimes produced bizarre, seemingly otherworldly sounds that permeated through the entire underground facility.

Much to her relief, Seren had not been seen since the third day. Following a series of intoxicated attempts to convince her to drink with him as she was washing her clothes in the laundry room, he grabbed her by the waist and kissed her on the lips. She punched him in the face as hard as she could. He called her a dike, and then disappeared somewhere upstairs, leaving a half-empty bottle of vodka behind. Wondering why a research facility would even have so much booze in storage, she poured the rest down the drain and promised herself that she would break it over his head if he did something like that again.

Marlo found something of a library on the second-to-lowest level, filled with books mostly about physics, and some about biology. A few titled mentioned something called xenobiology, and one xenoarcheology. Almost everything sounded like subject matter far beyond her understanding, and well outside of her interest. While ordinarily not her slice of cake, an idle mind often takes people to strange places. One book in particular stood out to her, _Worlds beyond Ultra Space_. She had heard that the ultra beasts traveled through something called ultra space, but she never understood what it was. She often wondered about what was on the other side of the wormholes.

She sat cross-legged on the floor and opened to the index, and was intrigued by the chapter titled "Versions of Reality." Turning to the page, Marlo became enraptured in the subject as the book described not only alien universes in which the ultra beasts originally lived, but also similar worlds of people and pokémon. She checked the copyright page of the book to verify that she was reading nonfiction, and then turned to another chapter titled "Documented Universes." Named by codes, and accompanied by short descriptions of their environments and fauna. Some of the worlds appeared to have multiple versions, sister worlds, with only slight alterations between them. The worlds of the nihiligo were dark voids of floating crystal platforms, illuminated by cosmic radiation alone. There was one known world of pheramosa, a desert planet with peculiar rock structures. The celesteela came from battered worlds of volcanoes and craters and acid pools.

One section was subtitled "The Obsidian World," described as an ecumenopolis, or a planet-wide city. It was a realm without light, populated by mutated humans and ultra beasts. "The people of this place, 'Ultra Megalopolis,' know the concept of pokémon, but not poké balls. Without taming technology, they command the beasts of their world as they travel freely through the void." Beneath it was a sketch of a man and woman with white hair and dark skin. She remembered the machines on the lowermost level, and that peculiar arch in the center of the chamber. _Almost like a doorway._ There were no fiction novels in this library – there was no doubt about it – researchers who worked in this facility had travelled to all of these places.

On the next page, she found "The Emerald World," described as "our cousin... A place of people and pokémon; a beautiful realm of green lands and blue skies. The geography of their world, and their histories and cultures are vastly different from ours, but their society is much the same. They love their pokémon as we love ours, and as if by some cosmic connection to us, they encapsulate them in poké balls not similar to our own, but identical." There was a sketch of a great green serpentine creature.

Marlo went over the description again, and again, still processing what she had read. Worlds beyond her own was not a foreign concept to anyone – the ultra beasts had come from _somewhere_ – but she had never envisioned one that could be called a cousin to hers. It was bizarre, and also inspiring. If these creatures could travel to her universes from places beyond imagination, then perhaps she could do the same, and arrive in The Emerald World. She closed the book, holding to the page with her thumb. _A new world. A new life._ It was all too good to be true – but was it? Dormer had to know something about this. But he was in no talking mood, thanks to Seren.

She flipped to the end of the book, "Afterword." It was a note from the author, Dr. Cassius Knox. "Much as humans have come to acquire dominion over the earth, the sea, and all things that walk, crawl, fly, and swim within its spheres, so too will we come to conquer the wilds of ultra space. I am not a man to speak of gods or destinies, but our recent discoveries have eliminated all doubt from my mind that man was created for no less than to extend his reach into the multiverse, and walk across the planes beyond. We will live in worlds beyond imagination, and talk through the void as if it is no object." This had obviously been written long before The Collapse. Someone who thought this optimistically about ultra space knew nothing of the portal storms that brought the world to its knees. It was not the only world, though.

Marlo stood up and made her way out of the little library, and made her way to the kitchen. Dormer would have to grab something to eat eventually, and that would be her chance to find out what he knew. She had nothing left in this broken place, and she could dream of nothing better than to step through an ultra space wormhole and start over in a different version of reality. Fate had brought her to this place - perhaps she was meant for more than to fight as glorified militia for a band of survivors in a dead land. She would not live and die in such a dismal place.

The kitchen was an austere little room with an oven, four burners, a sink, a refrigerator, a food hydrator, some cabinets, and a small round table with four chairs. Marlo was not hungry, and being sedentary for so long had made her conscious about her intake. She nuked a mug of water and dropped in a bag of tea as she sat at the table with _Worlds beyond Ultra Space._ She opened the book to the section about The Emerald World, and admired the sketch of the green snake-like creature, with its yellow markings and gaping red mouth. She wondered if it had a name.

Dormer would show up at some point within the next few hours, optimistically. She began to rehearse his entrance in her mind, silently practicing her words. He typically answered questions only on a need-to-know basis, but who was he to say what she needed to know? She had been dragged out to this nameless little island – certainly she deserved to know why. There was no doubt in her mind that the machines in the lowermost chamber could be used to generate ultra wormholes, but Dormer was not likely to admit to that - survivors of The Collapse would lose their minds if they knew that White Lightning was dabbling in such taboos. She needed to pose her questions in a way that would not give him an easy escape. Hopefully, his drinking will have loosened his tongue.

Marlo finished her tea, and continued to wait. She was starting to feel hungry. She perked up as the door suddenly opened, but it was only Seren. He looked at her for a moment, and then he looked away. She buried her eyes in the book and pretended to read as he grabbed a mostly full bottle of some fluorescent blue sports drink, and then left without a word. Marlo chuckled at the thought that maybe he had meant to prepare himself dinner, but would rather wait for her to leave. She wished she had the discipline to make herself stay awake all night reading at that chair.

The door opened again, and she forced herself not to look up until she was sure from the corner of her eye that it was Dormer. He took a packet of soup stock and began to heat a pot of water on one of the burners.

"Hey," she greeted him, a bit sheepishly.

"What's up?" he replied.

She hesitated. This was much easier inside her own mind.

"So..." she went on, "Is Dormer your first name or your last name?"

"Last."

"So, should I call you Doctor Dormer?" she jested.

"There are no doctors anymore," he replied, grimly.

"Maybe not in this universe, but there's got to be a world out there where there still are," she said, hoping that Dormer would have something to say about those other worlds. Her smile faded as it became clear that he had no reply.

"So, you're hard at work down there," she continued, "Any progress?"

"I'm getting there," he replied, a bit sharply.

Marlo chewed her lip. She was getting nowhere. Beating around the bush would only serve to annoy him – she needed to be more direct.

"Have you ever been to the Emerald World? Or the Obsidian one?"

Dormer's eyes bloomed, and in that brief moment before he turned back, she saw the truth.

"You've been reading fairy tales."

"So they're not real then?"

"They're real," he said, approaching her, "But they might as well not be. You'll never go to any of those places."

"And why's that?"

Dormer picked the book up from the table and examined the front cover. "Cassius," he said with disdain. He scoffed and put the book down. This was something he cared not to explain, but Marlo needed to know. He paused again.

"To make a long story short," he finally said, "Researchers such as myself walking so recklessly between worlds is the whole reason why the portal storms happened in the first place. It's not safe."

Marlo narrowed her brow, "No, that's impossible. There's no way a bunch of experiments in this little place would do that across the whole planet."

"It's not that simple, there's a network of facilities like this across every continent."

"If it's so dangerous then what are we doing here?"

"I'm working out a way that no one will ever be able to use one of these things again."

Marlo shook her head and blinked in disbelief, "Why?"

"Do you remember The Collapse?" he asked, flatly.

"But, if we travelled to a world like our own, we could live new lives."

Dormer laughed, "Is that what you've been getting at? You want to step through a wormhole and start a new life on the other side of ultra space? Let's say you do, now you're in some place called Rustboro City, and no one knows you, and you don't know anyone, and you don't exist according to anyone's records because you're an alien from another world! What do you do next?"

She said nothing. She was sorry that she had said anything to him at all.

"I don't mean to be rude," he added, "But the situation is really more complicated than you should know. If we don't shut these things down for good, they can be used to hurt a lot of people."

"And the ultra beasts that are already here?" she asked after some hesitation. "They're not already hurting anyone?"

"That's something that can be dealt with in time. I mean no disrespect, but frankly you just don't understand what you're talking about."

Dormer turned around back to the stove. The pot had come to boil. Marlo could not argue – she really did not understand any of this. She sighed as the mists of her fantasy were wafted away. This cold, dead place would be her grave. Dormer pulled a bowl down from the cabinet and turned off the burner.

"I'm sorry I laughed at you," he said, pouring himself his dinner.

"This world is dead already," she said, grimly, "All I'm talking about is a second chance at life."

"I'm not dead, and neither are you," he replied, grabbing a soup spoon from the counter drawer before making his way to the door.


	8. The Void Talkers

Jaden

Jaden and Penny had been driving for two days. Originally, they had hoped to rendezvous with Carter and Lilith, but they arrived at the charging station to find it empty, shelves cleared and batteries drained. Jaden could only pray for their safety as they returned to base with their haul. Having nowhere else to go, he concluded that their best option was to find another faction. On their own, they could scarcely feed themselves, and Jaden shuddered to think of fending off a hostile ultra beast with only Penny at his side.

Valiant Undying had been amicable in the past, but it was situated in the mountains, and inaccessible by car ever since they had employed a team of golems to destroy the roads. The Evergreen Knights was a small, peaceful faction based in what had been a community of mobile homes now permanently affixed in the old camp grounds of the regional pine barrens. Jaden drove for a day and night only to find two guzzlords eating the hollow remains of the trailers, not a person in sight. He put his car into reverse and did not turn around until the beasts were out of sight.

Jaden had hoped to find a station where he could recharge his car here before driving to all corners of the Alachia region in hopes of finding a faction both able and willing to take them in. He found five charging stations totally dry. With no supplies and a mostly dead battery, Jaden held no qualms about leaving his SUV behind in a town that had once been called Breyerville, taking with them only the sleeping bags that he had always kept in the trunk. The effects of The Collapse were always much more visible in the urban areas: broken windows, overgrown lawns, smashed cars, cracked roads, crumbling sidewalks, and weeds pushing through the pavement as though it were nothing at all. A steady westerly wind flew the mountain air, making for a crisp, cool morning as the rising sun in the cloudless sky cast arms of orange light between the gaps of the buildings.

Optimism waned as they wandered hungry and exhausted through the cobblestone streets of the shopping plaza, passing by countless stores with glassy fronts and vacant shelves, hoping to find something that they could eat. Jaden did not want to say so, but he thought none of these buildings likely to have their own power supplies – perishables would certainly have spoiled. They found a sporting goods store where they stole a pair of mountain bikes, a white one for Jaden and a red one for Penny. Next door was a shop that had apparently sold various berries, picked fresh daily from a berry grove on the other side of town, if the faded sign in the window was to be trusted. With crossed fingers, Jaden and Penny sped off on their bicycles out of the shopping district, away from seamless rectangular red brick buildings and cobblestone alleys into the sparser surrounding suburbs and their winding, curving roads.

Jaden was awash with relief as the berry grove came into view, lined with rows of trees growing plump berries of various shapes and colors, bordered by a chain link fence some eight feet tall. It was a huge plot of land from which the other end could not be seen from the roadside. Finding the front gate chained and padlocked, he and Penny leaned their bikes against the fence, climbed over, scattering some starlies from a tree as they landed.

Steady gusts of wind hushed the grove with the rustling of the trees. Penny yanked a pecha berry from the vine and scarfed it down. Jaden playfully reminded her to chew her food before tearing into a sitrus berry. They ate, and Jaden began to question his decision about the Sons of the Sea. After having seen his own faction leader killed, and then finding the Evergreen Knights' base destroyed, he could identify no good reason to assume that they would find safe refuge with another faction. He wished that he could plant his roots right here with Penny, and live alone together on the fat of the land. He wondered if she would like that.

They walked about, picking berries at their own leisure. They split up, and met again in another part of the grove, and then they split up again. Jaden felt something soft hit the back of his head. He turned to see Penny laughing in the distance behind him, having thrown the berry. He smiled and pulled a fat, ripe rawst berry from the branch to hurl back at her. She took off into the grove, and he went chasing after her.

He lost sight of her for just a second, and then he heard her scream. Dropping the berry, he rushed to the source of the sound to find Penny frozen in place, hands over her mouth, wide-eyed in the face of three hanged men – bloodshot blue and brown and black eyes staring at nothing. They did not appear to have been dead for long. The wind swung them on the branches as their identical black cloaks flapped and rippled, hoods tossed behind their heads. Three familiar black masks were tossed haphazardly around the berry tree.

Jaden picked up one of the masks and inspected it. It was heavy, with a matte finish and a thin sliver of a black tinted glass visor. It covered the whole face above the mouth, and was secured to the head with a black elastic strap. Undoubtedly, these were the same people who had attacked the Falling Stars. He paused, his mind wrestling the possibilities. By the principle of the enemy of his enemy, Jaden hoped whoever had killed these men could be an ally to him. By the looks of the bodies, they were likely still close by, for better or for worse.

"Jaden, can we please leave?" asked Penny, misty-eyed, her voice cracking with emotion.

He nodded, and grabbed her and as they turned together to go back to their bikes, but Jaden was unsatisfied. Any party with the strength to resist the unknown force that had decapitated his own faction was worth learning about. If only he knew how to find them.

The front gate came into view as they made their way out of the orchard. A chill crept up their spines as a strange, almost otherworldly shriek rang through the orchard from the other side – an ultra beast. Penny immediately increased her pace, eager to escape whatever it was. Wind streamed through the trees, hushing distant sounds with the ambient music of rustling leaves, but Jaden was sure he had heard someone shout. He paused for a moment, dropping Penny's hand as he tried to judge the source of the noise.

"Jaden, come on," she said, noticing that he had stopped.

"Hold on," he replied as he began to run towards the source.

It became clearer as he approached – a battle was transpiring. Through the trees, in the distance, he identified four combatants, of which one was white as snow, and likely close to eight feet tall. Penny fell behind him, but his curiosity pushed him on nonetheless. The tallest figure dashed around at speeds that exceeded human perception. As he came closer, he recognized its pale, razor-thin body as that of a pheromosa. A porygon-z launched beams of lightning, only for the beast to dodge in the blink of an eye. The trainer shouted again, and a gardevoir appeared behind the alien creature, attacking with hunks of psychic energy. The pheromosa ducked, slid to the side, avoiding the projectile attacks. It assumed an offensive stance, and then dashed forth, slamming its legs into the gardevoir's belly with breakneck swiftness.

The trainer shouted again, "Zeroday! Charge beam!" The porygon-z rose to the air, twitching and beeping, as it began another electric barrage. He was a curious, feminine kid, short and slender, olive-skinned, and jet black hair as long as Penny's, whipping wildly in the wind as he shouted commands to his two pokémon. Jaden was only sure that he was male from the sound of his voice.

The digital pokémon managed to catch the slippery insectoid beast in its beam for a moment, stunning it as it shrieked in that queer, otherworldly voice. Jaden hurled a capsule forth, calling out his conkeldurr, "Let's go, Chief!" The burly pokémon shook his head and shoulders as he materialized, and then reached outward with both arms, grabbing hold of a tree on each of his sides and tearing them out of the ground, roots and all. This was how a conkeldurr fought. Chief swung his new weapons without mercy or mind as the pheromosa became a blur before him, avoiding hits with reflexes that defied all sense as leaves and dirt and broken branches kicked up around the battlefield.

Chief slammed one tree down, and then the other. The ivory beast landed between them, just before the conceldurr's head, ready to strike. "Yubel!" the long-haired trainer called out again, as his gardevoir caught the pheremosa in a psychic hold. It thrashed and screeched helplessly as the telekinetically hold kept it in place.

"Now!" shouted Jaden as Cheif lifted the trees, and slammed them together on the beast's head, crushing its skull like an egg, spraying fluorescent sky-blue blood. The headless beast fell limp to the ground, and Jaden began to catch his breath.

"Thanks," said the trainer as he called his porygon-z back to its poké ball. "I mean, I didn't need your help, but thanks anyway." He had one green eye, and one blue, and looked to be about fourteen years old.

Jaden returned Chief to his capsule. "You must be part of a faction," he remarked as Penny caught up with them, clearly shaken by the sight of the dead alien.

"No," he answered, casually. "I'm just passing through." He jumped, and grabbed a fat, pink fruit from a tree. His gardevoir teleported itself to his side, eyeing Jaden and Penny with a strange, piercing gaze. "I'm Zed, and this is Yubel."

"Passing through?" echoed Jaden, puzzled. He wondered if this boy knew anything about the black-cloaks. "I don't mean to alarm you, but there are some dead bodies here."

"Oh, yeah, I know," he said, chewing his bright pink snack. "I'm sorry about that."

"You're sorry? Why are you sorry?"

"Well I hanged them there," Zed said as if it were nothing.

Jaden and Penny exchanged a look, mouths agape. In all the years following The Collapse, Jaden had never even heard of someone Zed's age surviving outside of a sustained community. And yet here he was, all alone, fending for himself and hanging men.

"You? You did that?" he asked, stammering.

"They were going to kill me!" replied Zed, flustered.

"You took them on alone? And won?"

"Yeah. This isn't the first time I've had to deal with them."

"We were attacked by a group of people who wore those same cloaks and masks. When we tried to fight them, our poké balls didn't work. Not only that, but they didn't even use pokémon. They commanded ultra beasts."

"They're the Void Talkers. They use a jammer that sends out a signal to poké balls that basically tricks them into thinking it isn't safe to let the pokémon out. You can make your poké balls immune to it with a firmware patch. They're really strong – mostly because they use those jammers and then people can't even fight back. And yeah, some of them have ultra beasts." Zed stepped away and picked a peculiar poke ball up from the ground. It was black, with a neon green grid pattern overlay. "That bug you killed belonged to them. I let it out so I could practice. The Void Talkers go around demanding surrender from other factions, basically 'join us or die,' and you either surrender and join them, or you fight and die."

"How do you know all this?" asked Jaden, perhaps a bit too suspiciously.

"Because my dad was one of the people responsible for The Collapse," he replied, tossing aside the pit.

Jaden's eyes flared in disbelief, "You're lying."

Zed shrugged, "Okay."

"No, you wouldn't tell us this if it were true. People lost their families, their friends, their whole lives because of your dad—they would skin you alive if they knew that."

"Well it wasn't his fault. The whole thing was an accident – nobody wanted this to happen. But you seem like nice people. I know Yubel wouldn't have let you near me if he didn't trust you. I don't see the harm in being honest with you."

"So your dad is one of the Void Talkers, but you're not?"

"Yeah. Well, no. Let me explain. Basically, AetherCorp built a network of nodes throughout the planet that were supposed to support a system of ultra space portals. None of this was ever announced to the public, but my dad says that they planned on establishing permanent connections with civilizations in other universes in to build some kind of pan-dimensional society. But something went wrong, and portals opened up like crazy to random worlds in ultra space, and that's where all the ultra beasts came from. That's why it was so bad at first – the network topology was proportionate to population density, so the biggest cities got the worst of it, before all the ultra beasts spread out into the wilderness. So now they're trying to get as many people as possible and put them in some kind of bunker, and then they're going to reinitialize the system and start another portal storm, and swarms of ultra beasts will pour in again. My dad and some other people want to stop it, but it can't be done in just one place, so I'm out here helping him."

Jaden was at a loss for words. He had heard that the ultra beasts came from other universes – and he was never sure what to make of that - but this talk of other civilizations of people, and pan-dimensional societies sounded as pure fantasy. Strange as it were, Jaden believed every word. There was a much larger scheme at play than he would have ever imagined.

"How do we know you're telling the truth about all this?" asked Penny, bewildered.

"You don't, I guess," replied Zed, flatly.

A faint buzzing sound came from a black backpack slumped against the fence. The boy reached into it to retrieve a cell phone outfitted with a solar panel on the back, and began swiping through screens to read something.

"That thing works?" asked Jaden.

"It's a satphone on a private network," he replied, still reading, "The Void Talkers know what I'm up to, but they don't know my dad is working against them right under their roof. This is how we talk to each other."

"What's it say?" asked Penny.

"Nothing interesting. A faction called the Falling Stars has just surrendered to them."

"That's us!"

"We didn't surrender," added Jaden, "They showed up and started killing us, and then we ran away."

"Well, it doesn't say anything about that. My guess would be that whoever was still alive surrendered."

Jaden could only hope that Carter would have the sense not to fight. Lilith was much more likely to do something rash, but that did not bother him so much.

Zed went on, "The Void Talkers are amassing a huge force at your former base in preparation for an attack on another faction called Valiant Undying. Apparently they're really strong."

"And what are you going to do about this?" asked Jaden.

"Nothing," he said, as though it should have been obvious.

"Nothing?" echoed Jaden in shock, "I thought you were working against them."

"Yeah but this kind of thing has nothing to do with my mission. Besides, I'm one person, what do you want me to do? All this means to me is that I need to avoid Pinehaven and roads that lead to Pinehaven because I need to avoid people who want to detach my head from my shoulders."

"So what is your mission then?"

"I'm going to break into the central ultra space gateway hub and upload a virus to it that will stop the Void Talkers from being able to open up portal storms wherever they want and spawn whole armies of ultra beasts."

"And you're going to do that alone? I thought you were just one person."

"Well as you can see hanging from that tree over there, I can take care of myself. But no, I'm not just one person. Well, I mean, I wasn't. I was separated from my... partner. I don't know where he is. And it's not just me and my dad – there are other people involved."

"What if you had some help?"

"Are you asking if you can come with me?"

"These people killed our leader and our friend, and I want to be a part of stopping them," said Jaden, reluctant to mention that they had nowhere else to go.

Zed looked to his gardevoir. They locked eyes, and they seemed to be communicating mentally. Jaden had heard tell of this phenomenon between trainers and their psychic-type pokémon.

He turned back to Jaden, "So, here's the thing. I'll be honest with you. You two seem like nice people, and nice people are almost always weak. But Yubel thinks that I should give you a chance."

"So you'll let us travel with you?"

"As long as you aren't a burden." He reached into his backpack again and pulled out a peculiar device, similar to a barcode scanner, "Let me see your poké balls so I can edit their system files and make them immune to the Void Talkers' jammers."

Jaden and Penny emptied their pockets and one by one, Zed ran the capsules under the machine's infrared communicator, upgrading their firmware as the device produced beep codes. She smiled at him, but her eyes were rife with unease. She was no fighter, though she would go wherever Jaden went. But he had no qualms – they were better off in Zed's company than they were by themselves.


	9. White Lightning

Clara

The slate-colored clouds began to part in the west as the afternoon sun cast shafts of yellow light through the pale blue patches of sky. The rain had moved on, though Clara's clothes and hair and everything else tied to Mowi's saddle were still damp. He landed his tropius in the middle of a four-way intersection in what appeared to have once been Benford's business district with its glassy buildings rose above them in all directions, extending towards the horizon. Drops of water skated down windows of buildings and abandoned cars among dark wet concrete and still pools of water scattered about the uneven pavement. Shay and Reya helped Clara down from the pokémon's back, her broken arm tied with rope in a makeshift sling, bone throbbing as she moved.

Clara had not seen a city since The Collapse. She had envisioned Benford as a ruined clutter of broken buildings. Much to her surprise, it very much still looked like a city. It was peaceful, and strangely beautiful. She may have found it enjoyable if not for her injury. White Lightning supposedly controlled the entire municipality, but they could identify no sign of their presence – which was probably what they intended. Shay's plan to find them was no more complicated than to wander the city until they encountered some of its members. At the very least, Clara could agree that three visitors arriving on a flying pokémon would not be allowed to walk about their territory uninvestigated, if the faction's reputation was to mean anything at all.

They followed the road northeast towards the darker sky. Shay looked gloomy as ever with his greasy, long, brown hair, gaunt face, and sullen hazel eyes. Reya's anxiety was plain on her face as she nervously scanned alleyways and side streets, compulsively and constantly pushing sandy blonde hair out of her face. Mowi followed along behind, clearly exhausted, his long neck swinging side to side as he stepped his way through the streets. Shay had nearly killed his tropius, flying full-speed nonstop since the previous night. Clara pitied the beast, but she also felt a certain warmth knowing how determined her brother was to find help for her arm. She suggested that he put him in his capsule to save him the walk, but Shay explained that poké ball's ability to encapsulate a pokémon's accessories and attachments along with the creature itself was notoriously unreliable.

Glassy highrises and luxury apartments gradually gave way to sprawling warehouses and fading, rusted shipping containers as they made their way through the dead city. The landscape had begun to take the pale orange glow of the late afternoon as the glistening blue waves of the sea came into view between the building gaps. An elevated railroad ran along the coast, overlooking a bay choked with derelict ships slowly sinking to their graves.

"What are we looking for again?" asked Reya, wearily.

"My answers to most of your questions so far have been 'I don't know," he replied in a voice that cut like a whip. "My answers to pretty much all of your questions at this point are going to be the same."

Clara scoffed and shook her head. She had managed to convince her brother to save the girl's life, but for him to be nice to her was apparently too much. When did her brother become so cold?

They passed beneath the elevated railroad, and Mowi reeled as a strange, almost alien shriek rang from above. Clara's guts turned to water as xurkitree dropped upon them, wailing and screeching while its flailing long, wiry limbs crackled with electricity. Reya screamed and ran. Shay pulled out a poké ball as the ultra beast's arm swung into his stomach with such force to knock him from his feet. He landed on his back, rolling along the pavement as the capsule flew from his hand.

"Clara, get out of here!" he groaned as he struggled to pull himself to his feet.

Clara reached for a poké ball. She would not run. She could not. The xurkitree bounded on Mowi, striking mercilessly with electrified whips as the beast groaned and stumbled backwards. She hurled the capsule forth, wincing from the pain of her shattered arm as Princess materialized with a howl.

"Crunch!" she commanded.

With that, her houndoom hurled her body at the xurkitree, grabbing hold of its wiry body in her cruel jaws as the strange creature shrieked and recoiled. Mowi collected himself, and stiffened the long leafs that sprouted from his neck. They twisted in form, sharpening to a razor's edge as the long-necked pokémon lunged forward and cut back at his foe with a leaf blade attack. The xurkitree shook itself wildly, loosing electricity, electrocuting Princess. The hound lost her hold and fell back as the ultra beast diverted its attention to the tropius.

"Damn it Clara! Leave now!" she heard her brother shout as he called out Klicks, his gliscor, "Earthquake!"

"Fire blast!" replied Clara.

Shay's winged scorpion dug its claws into the pavement as Princess began to amass thermal energy in her mouth. The street cracked and opened wide in a path towards the xurkitree while Clara's houndoom cultivated a massive fireball. Distracted with Mowi's grass-type attacks, the ultra beast stumbled and reeled as the ground beneath it thrust open and pelted it with an eruption of rocks and dust. Mowi pulled away as the air filled with heat and light. Clara shielded her eyes, and Princess released her fire, catching the alien creature in a flaming explosion. Clara sighed in relief when the dust settled, and the xurkitree lay motionless in a piled of dust and shattered pavement. It wailed meekly as if to cry for help, while Princess, Mowi, and Klicks closed in, ready to strike at their trainer's command.

"Clara!" barked Shay as he stepped closer, "When I tell you to run, you fucking run!"

She rolled her eyes, "You wouldn't be telling me to run if I wasn't a girl."

"This has nothing to do with that! You have a broken arm!"

"Where's Reya?" she replied, partly to herself, as she scanned the street.

Shay snapped at her, "Oh, who the hell cares!"

Clara gave her brother a half-lidded look of disgust. She had no words for him.

Princess looked up, growling. Clara's heart nearly flew from her chest as two more screeching xurkitree dropped from the elevated railroad above in answer to the cries of their comrade, landing on opposite sides of the street. Clara and Shay stood at each other's backs as the alien creatures closed in, their wiry limbs glowing and crackling as they each assumed an offensive stance. Her brother cursed under his breath.

Shay shouted commands to his pokémon, "Mowi! Leaf blade! Klicks! Earthquake!"

Mowi lunged forth and struck at one of the new ultra beasts with stiffened razor leafs, while Klicks jammed his claws into the ground once again as he began to manipulate the earth beneath the other one into a cruel flurry of rocks and dirt. The xurkitree swung electrified limbs, smashing into cars and pavement as they engaged their foes. Clara noticed Mowi staggering as he took his opponent's blows, and commanded her houndoom to help him. Princess dashed away, behind a car, around the fray, and then swiped at the xurkitree from behind with canine claws and teeth in a vicious feint attack maneuver. Shay's tropius fell over, unable to continue fighting, as the beast he had been fighting turned its attention to Clara's hound.

"Flamethrower!"

A stream of fire spewed from Princess's mouth, licking at the xurkitree with waves of harsh heat as it screeched and flailed in pain. Clara's confidence drained away as the alien creature composed itself and struck her houndoom with an arm wrapped in lightning, sending the dog flying into a car windshield with a yelp, nearly shattering the glass. She screamed her pokémon's name, but the dog lay unresponsive. She turned to her brother to find Klicks collapsed at his feet. The xurkitree attacked again, striking him square in the head with an electric punch. All thoughts fled from Clara's head as Shay fell unconscious to the ground. The feeling drained from her hands and feet, and she realized that she was truly powerless.

Clara knelt down close to her fallen brother as tears welled in her eyes. He had warned her about this, but she did not listen. A man shouted something in the distance, and a car slammed into one of the xurkitree and pinned it to the ground in a flurry of electrical sparks as the ultra beast screeched in agony. The other began to rise into the air under the influence of some unseen force, flailing and screeching wildly as it fought to free itself.

Down the street, two men were running towards them, commanding a machamp and an alakazam. Clara stumbled back in terror as the xurkitree that she had thought was defeated began to pull itself from the rubble, while the one pinned beneath the car wrenched and jerked until it was free from the vehicle's weight. The third ultra beast curled itself into a helpless ball, trapped midair in a psychokinetic field.

The two capable xurkitree ran screaming and flailing towards the new challengers. The machamp lunged its body forth, punching mercilessly with four powerful arms. The other charged electrical power between its arms, and attacked the alakazam with a barrage of lightning. The psychic pokémon protected itself with an invisible barrier to stop the flow of electricity.

The restricting force field failed without the alakazam's mental focus, releasing the third xurkitree. It found its feet, and then slammed to the ground under the force of a man-sized chunk of ice. Three more people were approaching from the other side, leading a glalie, a reuniclus, and a sawk. The glalie began to flash-freeze another projectile as its target began to pull itself up. The sawk charged forward and joined the machamp in joint close combat against its opponent, while the reuniclus rushed to the alakazam's aid, blasting its foe from behind with a beam of concentrated psychic energy.

Clara's composure returned to her as Princess pulled herself up, and rushed back to her side. The pokémon was battered and limping, but she wanted to fight.

"Fire blast!"

Princess prepared another fireball. The glalie launched another chunk of ice, only for its target xurkitree to swat it out of the air with a slap. The houndoom released the energy, sending a flaming bullet sailing through the air, exploding on the ultra beast's head. Clara staggered from the blast, and lost her balance. Instinctively, she tried to break the fall with her arms, and she instantly remembered her shattered arm as her body seized up in agony. She hit the concrete grunting and gasping.

The makeshift rope sling on Clara's arm was coming undone, and the agony of her shattered bone rendered her scarcely able to move. From the ground, she saw the ultra beast fall. Down the road, the remaining two xurkitree were quickly overwhelmed by the newcomers' four pokémon - one collapsed to the ground under relentless battering, and the other faltered under a barrage of psychokinetic blasts. Princess ran up to her and licked at her face, whimpering and whining. A man ran to her side, and a woman to Shay's. They each knelt down beside the fallen.

"It's okay," he said to Clara, "You're alright now. You're alright." He was a good looking man, probably about thirty, black-skinned, with a scruffy face and ebony eyes.

She looked over to her brother, still unresponsive, "Is he breathing?"

"It's alright, you're all alright now," he went on, reaching to inspect her arm.

Clara recoiled and yelped in pain at his touch, "Please, tell me if he's okay!"

"Hold still, we're going to get you some help."

"Just tell me if my fucking brother is alive!"

"He's… breathing," the woman said, uncertainly, as she rolled him over onto his back.

Clara sighed in relief, and then winced again as the man poked and prodded at her bicep. The others began to return their pokémon to their capsules. Reya appeared from around the corner, all the color having drained from her face.

"Clara! They said they were looking for the ultra beasts – I told them what happened!"

"Who are you guys anyway?" asked Clara.

"I was just about to ask you that," replied the man, "We're White Lightning."


	10. Nothing but Ashes

Carter

Carter, along with Lilith and Erik, was among seven of the Falling Stars to be inducted to the Void Talkers. Following the exam, their faces were photographed, and they were each outfitted with their own matching cloaks and masks for their ceremony. It was a creepy, corny little midnight ritual involving scores of black-cloaks peculiar candles with strange flames that seemed to burn black, the rest either dead or rounded up to be shipped west to the Navajo region. Eve would have made eight, but she was caught trying to escape. Apparently, she had not been expecting the invaders to station guards overnight. As an example to potential deserters, she was brought forth before them in hysterics, bound by handcuffs. The white-sashed officer, Caius, asked if she had any departing words.

"Please don't hurt my pokémon," she pleaded, weeping like a child.

"You have my assurance, they will not be harmed. They are of no fault." With that, he called out a charizard from a regular poké ball. "Flamethrower!"

There were a few gasps as Carter squinted from the harsh light, and Eve wailed in agony under a sustained stream of fire for longer than he could bear to look. Her voice faded, the blaze dispersed, and Eve was ash and bone. There was only silence among the initiates – this was no shock compared to what they had seen.

"From this day forward, you are Void Talkers," he continued, "Repeat after me: 'For the greater glory of man, I pledge myself to the void.'"

"_For the greater glory of man, I pledge myself to the void."_

Carter blinked and asked himself how he had gone from scavenging for a community of survivors to joining a cult of lunatics. He was not sure whether he hated the motto more than the uniform. A simple black cloak, with not but sleeves and a hood. It covered everything, and it was nonsensically cumbersome. He could easily see himself tripping on it in a battle.

Caius went on, "Since you have demonstrated proficiency in the field of battle, you will each have a role to play moving forward. We will unite worlds, and you will be our collective hand."

Carter may have found it all funny if it were not so grim. The power vacuum created by The Collapse had been filled by cultist fanatics. They talked of voids and planes, but it all may as well have been another language. He wondered just how far these lunatics had spread – how many factions and communities already swallowed. There must have been other rational people tied up with them, only in obedience for their own safety. He had to find them.

The ceremony dispersed, and Carter was relieved to learn that he would be allowed to sleep in his own bed. They were allowed to go anywhere within the log cabin village that had once been called Pinehaven. He invited Lilith to stay at his cabin for the night, and they guzzled wine as though they thought their lives would end with the morning sun. They drank side by side at the foot of his king-sized bed, and they laughed, and then they had at it like it like wild, primal things without another care in the world. He lay awake, staring at the ceiling with her in his arm, silky black hair spilled over his bare chest and shoulder.

"I hope Jaden and Penny are alright," said Carter.

"They're probably dead," she replied, as if it meant nothing.

"Jaden's car wasn't at his cabin. I think they might've escaped."

"It makes no difference. They won't last one week on their own."

Lilith was snoring while Carter still struggled get to sleep. She had been rattled by their deadly entrance exam, but afterwards she seemed to feel a sense of accomplishment. He wanted to ask her what she thought of the whole ceremony. The Collapse obviously had a much stronger effect on some people's mental states than he had imagined, and Lilith had always been ambitious, but never entirely stable. She had always disdained the monotony of scavenging, and often expressed to Carter an indescribable desire to be part of something better, something stronger. He could only hope that she saw that ritual for the nonsense that it was.

He woke up to a cloudless blue sky, groggy, hungover, and alone. Lilith was nowhere to be found. He dragged himself to his kitchen sink and cupped his hands under the running water for a drink. He brushed his teeth, washed himself, and dressed himself in a white tee shirt and black jeans, wondering how long he would have before he was made to take on some inexplicable task wearing that ridiculous cloak-and-mask combo. He filled a glass with tap water and poured it down his parched throat in a few long gulps.

More Void Talkers appeared to have arrived overnight. Most of them at this point were disrobed, unfamiliar faces in regular clothes strutting about their new annexation. Carter liked them better with faces. From his hilltop cabin, he could see trainers with their pokémon where the limits of the town brushed against the forest's edge. He noticed an arcanine, a dodrio, a swampert, a zebstrika, a talonflame, and a chesnaught, among others too small and too far away to identify. They were much less intimidating without their disguises, and without ultra beasts at their command. He equipped his poké balls to his belt and stepped outside. The late morning light made him squint as he made his way through the village towards the training grounds. He knew no better way to learn more about the Void Talkers than to gain their trust, and battling was classically the best practice for gaining a fellow pokémon trainer's trust.

The village outskirts were alive with the cacophony of about two dozen trainers with their pokémon. Some battled against each other, while others practiced attacks on their own, all under the cloudless blue sky. He would have preferred to train alone, but if he would learn more, he would have to mingle. He reminded himself that not all of them were fanatics. The Void Talkers ruled by fear – there simply must have been rational people trapped among their ranks, parroting propaganda so as to not be dragged before a crowd and burned like a witch in times of old.

Carter heard a familiar shout, and turned to see Lilith commanding her swampert in a three way battle against Erik's zebstrika and someone else's arcanine. The three pokemon brawled in the dirt, loosing water and fire and lightning here and there, while the dodrio and talonflame pecked and thrashed at each other wildly to the shouts and orders of their trainers. A short distance from the others, the chesnaught threw relentless punches against a pine trunk, shaking the whole tree and loosing needles and cones to the rhythm of its trainer's commands. The owner was probably in her twenties, yellow hair falling to her waist, and dressed modestly in a red and black plaid flannel and blue jeans.

"Hey," Carter called out. He had to shout to be heard over the cacophony of commands and attacks.

She turned and looked at him, with big, puzzled blue eyes, her pokémon still slugging away at the tree. She looked like no cultist.

"Do you want to battle me?" he asked.

"Battle?" she replied, shyly. "You mean, right now?"

"If you want to. I'm just looking for an opponent, and I noticed you by yourself."

"Sure," she said, after some hesitation. "Jugger!"

Her chesnaught stopped and turned away from the tree. Carter pulled a poké ball from his belt and called out his bronzong, Dong.

"I'm ready when you are." The iron pokémon agreed with an inorganic buzz.

"Steel-type!" she exclaimed. "Jugger, hammer arm!"

The grass titan charged forth, right arm raised in the air.

"Protect!" replied Carter.

As the chesnaught brought down its arm with such force that could hammer a man into the earth like a nail into a board, Dong psychicked together a wall of solid light to stop the blow, and fist rang against the barrier.

"He's going defensive! Use focus punch!"

Her chesnaught took a deep breath and exhaled as it cleared its mind in preparation for the perfect punch, right in the face of its opponent – a tactical disaster.

"Psychic!"

Eyes glowing purple-pink, Dong buzzed and extended his arms the air rippled as he reached with a wave of energy, enveloping his opponent and stifling its mental preparation. Carter's bronzong lifted the chesnaught into the air, and began to crush its body with cruel psychokinetic twists. The grass-type pokémon moaned as it fought with all of its strength to regain control of its own body.

"Jugger!" she cried out. "You can do it!"

It fought, and curled, and made its body into a ball. Then, with a roar and a jerk of four limbs, the chesnaught broke the psychic hold and freed itself, planting its feet back to the ground with a thud.

"Gravity!"

Dong lowered itself and began to exert psychic force on the surrounding area. Carter felt gravity increase, and his opponent's pokémon was struggling to stand. Its own bulk would be its defeat.

"Hammer arm!"

With bowed legs, the green giant strained to raise its arm again. Dong continued to strengthen the pull of gravity, but it could not weigh the opponent down enough. The chesnaught lifted its arm higher, preparing to strike. It was too late to do anything when Carter finally realized what his foe meant to do – they were using the pull to their advantage. In a swipe faster than the eye, it brought down a hammer arm, slamming into Dong with a low ring and stopping the gravitational exertion.

The weight of the area returned to normal, and the chesnaught began to thrash, hurling limbs without mind to its trainer's commands. Dong raised another psychic barrier to protect itself, and the grass titan punched it until it was broken. She shouted commands, and projectiles were loosed from its shell. Most of them burst on the ground, but a lucky few found their target, spraying woody shrapnel. Carter's bronzong was floating backwards under enemy pursuit, taking blows and fighting back with hunks of psychic material. For a moment, the chesnaught was caught once again in a midair energy trap, only to break free with its own power.

"Don't let up!" she exclaimed. She seemed less shy now that her pokémon was winning.

Carter chuckled. He had long forgotten the joy of a battle for battling's sake. In the old world, he had fought for glory, and dreamed of dethroning Damon as champion of the Alachia region. They were days gone by, in a world long lost. He snapped back to reality as his bronzong finally fell, metal body slamming into the dirt and kicking up a cloud of dust. The chesnaught stood above, catching its breath.

"That's right!" the girl taunted, "Jugger never loses to steel-types!"

"I used to say Dong never lost to fighting-types," Carter joked as he returned his pokémon to its capsule, "I might still say that, when you're not around."

"Your pokémon was tough – I'll give you that. You really made Jugger tire himself out."

"Thanks," Carter replied as he walked closer to her. "Your guy is pretty strong. I'm Carter, by the way. I guess you could say I'm recently conquered."

She laughed, "I'm Steph."

"If you don't mind me asking, why did you join the Void Talkers?"

Her blue eyes sank away in discomfort. "Well," she replied, her voice growing solemn. "I was part of a community of farmers. We called ourselves the Kings of the Crop. And, well... you were one of the Falling Stars, right?"

"Yeah," he replied, grimly. He had known the Kings of the Crop, he had known their strength, and he knew where her story was going.

"The black-cloaks showed up at our farms a few weeks ago, and they rounded us up out of our homes and said 'join, or die.' Some of us fought, and some of us ran. Anyone who didn't get away was either killed, or made to join them, so here I am."

"That sounds familiar," he said dryly, "Did they lock you in a room and make you fight ultra beasts?"

"We've all gone through that," she replied. "You ask anyone here, they've all passed some kind of test. You shouldn't ask too many questions, though. If you say the wrong thing to the wrong person, they'll rat you out. They'll kill you if they think they can't trust you."

"So how do you tell the difference between the right person and the wrong person?"

"Anyone wearing a mask is someone you don't want to talk to. The originals, the ones who came from Navajo, they never show their faces. They're the only ones who are allowed to use the ultra beasts. Everyone else was probably threatened into joining."

Carter puzzled at the thought. In all directions, he only saw normal people, wearing normal clothes, sparring and training as men and women had done with their pokémon since the dawn of time. They were normal people, all roped into insanity with an axe aimed at their neck. Just how strong could the Void Talkers really be, if so many among its ranks only followed orders in the interest of their own safety? It reminded him of the mounted warriors in ancient times. Under direction of their iron-fisted khan, they swept across continents, swallowing whole nations, and disappearing entire cultures. It was not until their dilapidated forces began to break against the stone walls and castles at the known world's westernmost ends that their grip on the conquered started to weaken. They had won countless battles, but they were spread out and decentralized, and so they lacked the staying power to impose their control rule on the peoples they defeated. In the end, the mounted warriors of the east could not hold what they had taken, and their sphere of power receded back to their homelands. People cannot be ruled by fear alone, and that will be the Void Talkers' eventual downfall.

"But why?" he asked. "What's the end to all of this?"

"Power," Steph replied. "And control."

He chewed his lip without an answer. The silence grew to awkward lengths, and she and her chesnaught went back to their rhythmic tree-beating.

Carter turned back to the three-way battle behind him, finding Lilith smirking beside her swampert, hands at her hips, standing proudly in her low-cut black shirt and white pants that may as well have been painted on her, standing proudly over a defeated arcanine and zebstrika. She nodded at him, and he made himself nod back, observing that she seemed much too comfortable.


	11. Headgames

Shay

Shay felt like his head had been filled with cement as the nurse and her helper audino led him through the hallway. He had been offered a wheelchair, and replied with a scoff. The building was dismal, with peeling paint and flickering fluorescent lights spaced along the length of the ceiling. It felt like night, but without any windows, the time was anyone's guess. He did not remember being taken here. He remembered being attacked, and not much else. He had been told that agents of White Lightning found him out cold on the ground, surrounded by hostile ultra beasts. Whoever was in charge had apparently demanded that Shay be summoned the moment that he woke up. Probably still concussed, he swerved about the corridors, drawing the occasional concerned glance from his guides.

Through narrow, winding halls, up tight flights of stairs, Shay was eventually led to a meeting room that belied what else he had seen of the building with its pristine white walls and glossy hardwood flooring. At the center stood a circular wooden table, ensconced by five steel chairs with fat red cushions. The nurse asked him to seat himself, and assured him that he would not be waiting for much longer as she and her audino shut the door behind them. He sat down, his head swimming, and he wondered whether it would have been easier to simply have had the other person brought to him.

The room had no clocks. Shay shuffled restlessly in his chair as his mind wrestled with whether it had been five minutes, or ten, or maybe it had only been two. He crossed his right leg over his left, and then he switched legs when his foot began to fall asleep. His mission so far had been a disaster. He should have known better than to bring Clara along. By himself, he could avoid trouble much more easily, but stealth was nigh impossible with an extra body – especially an extra body insistent on picking up stragglers. He could never say it to Clara's face, but her broken arm was her own fault entirely.

The door swung open, and a man and woman walked in. The man wore a gray suit and a black tie. He looked to be in his mid-twenties, tall and gangly, with frameless glasses in front of watery silver-slate eyes and a great wide horn of a nose. His hair was a shaggy brown mass of curls. The woman was not much shorter, about thirty, razor-thin, with a gaunt face, prominent cheekbones, and gray-green eyes that could cut right through a man. She wore a white lab coat over a dark blue shirt and black suit pants. Shay racked his brain - he had met them before, or at least one of them. They each took a seat on the other side of the table. The man rested his feet on the next chair over.

"I must say, I'm disappointed, Shay," the man teased, "I'd have expected better from you than to let three beasts knock you out like that."

Shay gave no immediate answer.

"It's been years since I've seen that castle," he went on, "Do you remember me?"

"Vaguely. Were you one of my challengers?"

"That I was. I'm Leon Dormer, and this is Doctor Knox. Many years ago, I meant to challenge your regional champion, but you stopped me."

"If you couldn't beat me, challenging him would have been a waste of your time."

Leon laughed. Doctor Knox rolled her eyes.

She spoke up, "We met with your sister earlier. She explained to us that you're having difficulties with another faction, but she didn't seem to know any more than that. Could you elaborate?"

Shay had envisioned that this would be the easiest part of his mission, but in the face of White Lightning's leadership, he was not even sure where to begin.

"The situation is... difficult," he finally said, "We don't really know what we're dealing with."

Leon reached into his blazer, retrieved a folded piece of paper, and flicked it towards him. It fluttered in the air, and then landed on the table. With a raised eyebrow, Shay reached and grabbed it. His heart dropped as he unfolded it to see the same handwritten message that had sent him on his mission in the first place.

"Did they send you one of these, too?"

Knox's eyes flashed in Leon's direction in a momentary pout of disapproval. Shay was speechless. Their message boasted a strength to consume the world, and to start a war with the most powerful factions in the Alachia and Ontaukett regions meant that they were obviously confident in their abilities to do so. They were operating on a much larger scale than he had imagined. Shay remembered the Kings of the Crop, so far from their own territory. They were probably fleeing the same threat.

"This was sent to us on the back of a pidgeot about two weeks ago," Leon went on, "Those xurkitree that attacked you were actually supposed to be something of a defense. My genius of a chief engineer had this zubatshit idea that we could attract electric-type ultra beasts to the city by partially reactivating the old power grid, and they would attack anyone who wandered into our city trying to find us. I mean, obviously it worked, but at what cost? My people are afraid to go outside."

Knox gave him a look, and Shay could tell that she had had something to do with the decision.

"Well, as you know, it's been a long time since our factions have had contact with each other," replied Shay. "Damon wanted me to find out what you knew about them."

His gaze dropped away from Shay's face. Looking at nothing in particular, Leon narrowed his eyes and chewed his lip as he seemed to wrestle with some imaginary conflict. Knox glared once again in his direction, as if expecting him to say something he should not.

"Well," he finally said, trailing as if he still had not found the words, "I know what the letter says, and so do you. So I reckon that we know about as much as you do."

His voice had lost a certain confidence, and he suddenly seemed careful about his words. It was all Shay needed – they were hiding something.

Shay replied, "So, you don't know anything about the Void Talkers, except that the best way to deal with them is by loosing ultra beasts on your own territory?"

"We've been preparing ourselves in every way possible," said Knox, a bit defensively.

"So you're taking them very seriously. But have you considered that this might be some kind of prank? No one in my faction had ever even heard of the Void Talkers, and after all we do live in a world where people think that this kind of thing is funny. We spent about two hours debating that possibility."

"No," she replied assuredly and immediately, "That is a stupid and reckless assumption."

Shay was getting closer, "Why is it stupid and reckless?"

Her face flared in disbelief, "Do you really need me to explain that to you?"

"No, I'm actually more interested in knowing what you've done to learn more about these Void Talkers before you did anything at all."

"That's not something we can share with you."

"Why not?"

"Frankly, we don't trust outsiders with that kind of knowledge."

"You should reconsider that if you want our help," Shay said with a shrug.

"I don't believe we asked for that. I believe you came here looking for our help."

"You said that it was stupid and reckless not to treat this threat with credibility. Ignoring an offer for help from the strongest faction in the Alachia Region has got to be at least one of those things."

"In the Alachia Region," she echoed, "Will you move your castle here? Or should we move our base to you?"

"They're in the Navajo Region," said Leon, as though the words had been killing him inside.

Knox glared at him in equal parts disapproval and shock.

"I know what I'm doing," he said to her in his defense. "This is one of the Alachia Elite Four – we can trust him."

Pouting, she only shook her head and crossed her arms in silent fury.

"We were able to put a GPS tracker on the bird that brought the message here," Leon went on, looking back to Shay. "We tracked it to an old AetherCorp ultra space gateway hub in the Painted Desert."

Shay leaned forward, intrigued "An ultra space gateway hub?"

"That's enough, Leon," said Knox, sharply.

"There's a network of gateway hubs throughout the world, all connected to each other," replied Leon, ignoring his colleague. "They're control centers for the wormhole generators that can open ultra space portals all over the world, which is what started the portal storm in the first place."

Shay raised his brow as he began to realize that Leon was talking about The Collapse itself, "What do the Void Talkers have to do with ultra space?"

"We... recognized the handwriting of the message as someone who worked for AetherCorp."

The doctor's eyes bloomed into fury. Her colleague must have been walking on thin ice. By Leon's growing discomfort, he obviously knew that very well.

Shay tilted his head in curiosity, "You recognized the handwriting?"

Leon chewed his lip – he did not want to explain that, and it was plain on Knox's face that she did not want him to either. Shay had asked the right question.

"So whose handwriting was it? Your old boss?" Shay asked Doctor Knox.

If looks could kill, Knox's reaction would have left Shay dead, and that alone was enough to confirm his suspicions: she was involved in The Collapse somehow. The origin of the wormholes that released swarms of ultra beasts into the world had been a mystery as far as Shay had ever known. People had their theories about AetherCorp, but no one could say with confidence what had caused the incident. Palpably, it was meant to be a secret, but White Lightning was connected to it, and so were the Void Talkers.

"Do I know too much?" Shay went on, facetiously. "Are you going to lock me up?"

Knox blinked, "I don't know what you're talking about."

Leon interjected, "Shay, it's not important how we know what we know, or where we came from. What's important is that we defeat the enemy at hand."

"I agree. We need to tell Valiant Undying," replied Shay. "We should pool our strength, go to Navajo, and kick their asses."

"That won't work," replied Leon.

"Why not?" asked Shay.

"They already have localized control of the gateway network in that region. They can summon swarms of ultra beasts – mini portal storms. Even with our combined strength, we'd be cut to pieces."

"So then how do we stop them?"

"Right now we're looking at the central gateway hub in Imperia City. They can control all of the others from there."

"So then let's get our best people together, go to Imperia, and then destroy it."

"It's not that simple. We can't just destroy it. If we destroy the central hub, they would still have control of the other. We want to seize control of it, so that we can lock out the whole global network."

"And you couldn't just tell me all this from the beginning?" asked Shay.

"This is supposed to be top-secret or something," replied Leon. "Most of our people don't know anything about any of this. And you're, well, an outsider. But we don't need secrets - we need strong trainers, and yours is a face I know we can trust. Are the rest of the Elite Four still alive?"

"Last I checked."

"Good. I want all of your best people working with us on this."

"I'll mount up right away."

"No, I'm going to send someone on your behalf - there's no time for you to go back. We need to get a team together now, and we're going to Imperia City to secure that hub before the Void Talkers can get to it. And if they already have it, then we're taking it back."

Leon stood up and extended a hand across the table.

"I look forward to seeing our people fight alongside yours," he added as they shook hands.

It was all very sudden, and all very strange, but Shay found comfort in what he had learned. If he knew the enemy, then he could fight the enemy, and White Lightning knew the enemy – probably better than they cared to admit.


	12. The Jig is Up

Penny

Penny could hardly make sense of Jaden's out-of-the-blue decision to follow this strange, girly boy with differently-colored eyes to Imperia City. Oceanside, and built on a natural harbor, the city was an international center of trade and commerce in its heyday. It had been hit hard by The Collapse, as did all metropolitan centers, and with time acquired a dangerous reputation. Chilling tales floated around the communities of survivors, that some people wandered into Imperia and were cut to pieces by ultra beasts, or that they were attacked by bandits, robbed and left in the gutter with slit throats or smashed heads, or that they just simply vanished and were never seen again. By rule of thumb, large cities were to be avoided.

The Alachia River ran from the mountains to the sea, dividing the region in half. The only routes to Imperia City from where they were involved crossing it. Following the highway, they found themselves facing a raised drawbridge, and nothing else in sight but an endless expanse of conifers. Zed tried to lower the bridge from a booth at the foot of the bridge ramp, but found the controls inoperable, though it was hard to believe that he even knew how to operate them in the first place. Exhausted, the three of them set camp for the night, assured by Zed that he would get them across in the morning "by one way or another." They unrolled their sleeping bags inside the booth, which had just barely enough space for the three of them to lay down next to each other. Jaden and Zed had fallen asleep, but Penny's malaise permitted no rest.

There was strength in numbers, certainly, but why they wanted to rush headlong into such a place was beyond her comprehension. Zed had proven to be a much better survivalist than Jaden – in the time that they had been together, she had seen his pokémon subdue ultra beasts with an ease that put even Carter and Lilith to shame. On their second day together, they were attacked by a swarm of kartana, which his gardevoir was able to repel almost all of them at once with a single psychic attack, leaving the rest of them relatively easy pickings for Jaden's conkeldurr and Penny's flareon. On the fifth, Zed defeated a hostile guzzlord using the same pokémon, with a single fairy-type attack. She felt safer in his company, but she wanted nothing to do with his insane mission. Penny wanted her old life back, her mom and dad, her school, her friends. It was all long behind her. Even so, she had come to feel comfortable in her place with the Falling Stars, warts and all. She liked the people, and she liked being on Carter's team, for the most part. And in one night, it was all swept away from her. It would follow the pattern of her luck that such a horrible thing would happen on the night that Jaden finally made a move on her. She had often noticed him looking at her, at times when he probably thought she could not tell, but she never found the confidence to say that it was more than her imagination. The night they met Zed, Jaden had tried to kiss her after the campfire went out, when the odd-eyed boy seemed to have fallen asleep, but she backed away – it felt wrong at the time with the extra company, though she regretted it now.

Penny grew restless in her sleeping bag, as the air grew heavy inside the stuffy little booth. She poked at Jaden's back, whispering his name, but he was soundly asleep. Reluctant to risk waking up Zed, she gave up, slipped on her maroon hoodie, and escaped into the cool midnight air alone. Her red bicycle was where she had left it, leaned against the guardrail of the bridge, next to Jaden's blue and Zed's green. She wanted to take it down the road for a ride beneath the stars, but paranoia insisted that she stay with the others, where she would be safe. She sat cross-legged at the edge of the grounded portion of the drawbridge and threw her head up to the constellations above, red hair swaying around her face and shoulders in the wind. The moon was full and bright, and for a few moments of purity here and there, everything was okay.

Someone inside the booth was stirring. Penny looked over, hoping to see Jaden, but it was only Zed. He rushed outside towards the center of the road just at the foot of the bridge. A light appeared in his hand – probably the backlight from his VPN satellite phone. Eyes locked down at the device, he typed and tapped and swiped anxiously, face hidden behind drapes of long black hair. He shuffled left and right around the road, wandering absentmindedly in Penny's direction. Wearing his backpack over one shoulder, he cursed under his breath at something on the screen, and threw his arms downward in frustration. Finally looking up, he locked eyes with Penny, and blinked in confusion.

"When did you get here?" he asked, sounding a little annoyed.

"Sorry, I couldn't sleep," she replied, a bit defensively.

Zed was pacing in nervous circles, "You know what? That's actually good. Wake up your boyfriend, we need to cross this bridge right now."

Penny had grown tired of correcting Zed about her relationship with Jaden, "Why? What's going on?"

"They found out what my dad's been doing – they probably have him in chains right now, which means that I won't get anymore updates about the Void Talkers, which means that we need to get to where we need to go as soon as possible before they catch up to us."

Penny opened her mouth for a reply, but found no words. It was all well beyond her sphere of knowledge. Zed reached down and grabbed her by the bicep, trying to pull her from the ground.

He went on, growing agitated, "Come on, we need to pack up and go now."

Penny pulled away, observing that his arms were as skinny as hers, "Wait, wait – slow down."

"There's no time to slow down! You just said you can't sleep anyway, so shut up and do what I say or I'll leave you both behind!"

Finally, Penny rose to her feet, "Don't you think we should talk about this first? The three of us?" He was barely a half inch taller than she was.

"No, you two don't know anything!"

"Hey, we're trying to help you!" Penny lashed back, offended.

"You two are only following me because you'd starve to death on your own, and I'm only letting you because I can actually use the extra bodies, so unless you want to go back to starving, do what I say and wake up Jaden."

Penny raised her brow in astonishment. _So that's what we are to him._ "Why don't you wake him up?" she replied, sassily.

"Because he's clearly in love with you, which makes him more likely to listen to you than to me," Zed growled. "I mean, really – do you need every little thing spelled out for you?"

"Excuse me?"

"This phone connects to satellites! If they've found out that I've been talking to a scientist at their headquarters with this thing, they can use the GPS to find our exact location!"

Zed paused as his scowl began to fade. Something else was drawing his attention. He turned to look down the highway. The wind died down for a moment, and Penny could hear the engine approaching. She felt her heart sink as headlights rose over the hill – two cars. Zed grabbed Penny by the forearm as he ran off the road towards the surrounding woods. "Come on!" he said in a hushed growl, dragging her behind him. She stumbled along, making no effort to resist. They hopped the guardrail, hid behind a tree, and crouched into the brush, watching the road with knotted guts, hoping they would pass by.

Two eerily familiar black hummers rolled to a stop at the foot of the road ramp to the bridge, and Penny realized that they had nowhere to go. Her heart nearly jumped up and out of her throat as she recognized two black hummers, just like the one she saw in Pinehaven. She could only pray that they were not the Void Talkers – but she knew better.

Penny squinted in the harsh contrast of the headlights against the black of night as the back and passenger doors opened to release a squad of black-cloaked, black-masked Void Talkers. She heard voices, though they were too far away to understand the words. They wanted the bridge lowered, no doubt, and no part of her could find a hope that they would not find Jaden sleeping inside the booth. She had to do something, but what could she do? Penny turned at the sound of rustling leaves to see Zed slipping further away into the woods.

"Wait!" she called to him in a hush.

"Shut up!" he shot back. The Void Talkers were spreading out from their cars, maybe eight in all. "There's too many!" he said under his breath as he sprinted towards the water. Some of them headed for the booth, while others began to look between the trees. Voices faded to the sound of rushing water as Penny followed Zed downslope. They reached the land's edge and looked out across to the other side. The flow was fast, and it would undoubtedly be as cold as ice. Behind them, beams of light swept through the forest as the black-cloaks searched the woods.

"We know you're here Zed!" a man's voice shouted from the highway. "Come out now, and come out peacefully, and we promise you mercy!"

With a growl, Zed chucked his satphone into the river, and detached a poké ball from his belt. He called out his gardevoir in a flash of light.

"There!" another man's voice called from the woods.

"Yubel, get us across the river!"

The gardevoir hummed and locked his hands together. The others began to swarm through the trees towards Zed and Penny.

"Don't let him get away!" another voice called out.

Poké balls flew in a cacophony of battle cries and attack commands. An arcanine, a magmortar, and a chesnaught appeared, rushing headlong by their trainers' orders. Penny blinked, and they were gone. She looked around in disbelief, and then nearly collapsed from nausea as her body realized that she had just been teleported across the river with Zed and Yubel. The Void Talkers howled and cursed at them from the other shore.

"Come on, come on!" he said frantically as he rushed uphill towards the highway.

"But – Jaden!"

"He's already dead!"

Penny looked back across the river to see a milotic materializing in the water. It lowered its head, and its trainer climbed onto its neck. Another called out a pidgeotto and ordered it to the air, grabbing hold of its feet as the bird strained and struggled and flapped its wings to ferry the man's weight across the water. The greatest pokémon trainers were not hindered by such obstacles. They had slowed down their assailants – but no more. She hated him for it, but Zed was right about Jaden. There was nothing to be done but run.

"Why didn't we just teleport across the bridge in the first place?" she asked, losing her breath up the slope.

"Do you ever stop asking questions?" he snapped back.

They ran through the woods as though the ground might vanish beneath their feet at any instant. Dodging trunks as low branches whipped at them. Yubel teleported herself to the highway road, calling to Zed in a wordless whine. There was a splash. Behind them, the pidgeotto's wings had failed about three quarters of the way across, and man-and-pokémon plunged into the water just as the milotic reached the shore. Its masked trainer leaped from its neck, landing on the ground alone on two feet. A female voice issued a command, and from the serpent's mouth loosed a stream of water, kicking up dirt and dust from the forest floor, and stripping bark from the trees in a misty, splintery spray.

Their masked assailant was still in pursuit, though the milotic was apparently unable to maneuver into the forest. Another poké ball flew forward, past Penny, releasing a swampert just before her with a throaty roar, blocking her path. The creature tilted its head at her, and in its face, she could have sworn that it recognized her. This was Kippy – Lilith's pokémon. If the violent and genocidal practices of the Void Talkers would appeal to anyone who had been a member of the Falling Stars, it would be her.

"Kippy! Earth power!" Lilith ordered from behind.

The swampert huffed and shook its head, apparently refusing the command. Lilith had hated Penny since the day they were placed on the same salvaging team, but apparently the same was not true for her pokémon. She wasted no time, sprinting past the stubborn frog. She stood no chance against Lilith by herself.

"I said, earth power!" screamed Lilith as she caught up to her pokémon. Kippy planted his front feet to the ground and exerted his terrestrial influence. The ground beneath Yubel's feet broke apart as an eruption of earth and rocks flew up around him from below, stifling his telekinesis. The dust faded, and the psychic pokémon was standing unscathed some five feet away from where the attack had landed – apparently having teleported out of harm's way at the last moment.

"Moonblast!" cried Zed. Yubel extended his arms to the heavens through a clearing in the forest canopy as he began to glow with celestial light, as if cast down from the moon above.

"Hydro pump!" replied Lilith as her swampert spewed forth a geyser with force that could flay a man's skin.

The gardevoir once again warped away from the attack, relocating himself to the other side of the resulting hole from Kippy's earth power attack, and then released a blinding beam of light that illuminated the surrounding pines. The frog monster reared and shook his head, staggering from the blast.

"Psybeam!" Zed cried out again.

Penny reached for a poké ball and called out her flareon, "Piper, Flamethrower!" The fire fox materialized beside Yubel, and belched a stream of fire.

"Surf!"

Kippy gushed a wide, lazy blast of water, creating a wave across the forest floor and extinguishing Piper's flames. Zed's gardevoir shot back with a concentrated beam of psychic energy, punching a whole through the aquatic wall and saving himself from the attack. The wave crashed, and Piper tumbled backwards in a tangle of wet red and yellow fur as Penny was knocked from her feet. Lilith's swampert staggered and groaned as the psybeam hit him square in the face.

"Earthquake!" ordered Lilith as Kippy strained over the ground once more, this time shaking the whole surrounding area. The earth twisted and shook below, and trees swayed in response. Penny tried to get to her feet, only to stumble to all fours as the ground swayed beneath her.

Yubel telekinetically lifted himself to the air. Zed called another command, "Psychic!" His gardevoir glowed purple with mental energy, and the swampert kicked and thrashed helplessly in the mental hold as his earthquake attack was stifled. "Now!" shouted Zed, thrusting a finger towards Lilith. Yubel mirrored his gesture, sending Kippy through the air, crashing into his trainer and trapping her beneath his limp, defeated body. "Come on!" he yelled to Penny as he disappeared running into the night. She pulled herself to her feet and sprinted after him, Piper following behind. Penny's hands felt numb. Her heart raced as tears welled in her eyes. She had lost almost everything when she ran away from the Void Talkers the first time, and the second encounter had taken the rest.


	13. An Unlikely Face

Carter

Each day heralded the arrival of more black-cloaks at the cabin community that had once been the headquarters of the Falling Stars. Many of them arrived in old buses and recreational vehicles that had been gutted and then outfitted so as to function as portable shelters, stocked with beds and living supplies. By the end of the first week, Carter estimated there to be at least one thousand black-cloaks in town. He found himself training at the village outskirts each morning and afternoon. Whatever was to follow, he would not allow his strength to atrophy. He dreamed each night of escape, but he permitted himself no complaints. The Void Talkers were ever vigilant, and anyone to fall outside their scope of trust never lived for long.

Carter woke one day to find several sheets of paper sticking through his mail slot, folded together. Unfolding the message at his kitchen table, Carter found himself congratulated as having been one of the most distinguished recruits. He failed to recall ever telling anyone that he had collected eight gym badges in the Alachia region, but nonetheless they knew. Erik had each collected some badges, but only Lilith had paralleled Carter in qualifying for a Pokémon League challenge. Given her ferocious displays at the training grounds, he had no doubts that he would be seeing her among the same ranks.

Their forces would be divided into two: one to attack Valiant Undying at the Alachia Pokémon League in the western mountains, and the other to invade a coastal city called Benford in the Ontaukett region to the east, apparently controlled by the faction White Lightning. Following that, both forces would rendezvous in the ruined city of Imperia. Carter, however, was among those selected to join a small task force destined for Imperia City, the largest city in the region, close to the border with Ontaukett in the east. Large cities were to be avoided by rule of thumb for a hoist of reasons, and he did not know where to begin imagining what they wanted him to do there.

The assignment described a high-priority target, to be captured alive so that he might be brought to justice. Remembering Eve's smoldering ashes, he flipped to the next sheet. _This is a boy?_ Carter thought to himself as he reviewed the photograph of Zed Albarn, the Void Talkers' number one most wanted, and the accompanying dossier. He was some girly-looking boy with long black hair, one green eye, and one blue. "Never judge a trainer by their appearance," was something Jaden had once told him, when he had proposed Penny's addition to the team – that timid, shy little teenaged girl. True enough, looks are often deceiving, though it had never been true for her. This boy was fourteen – even younger than she was, and according to the document he had attacked and _murdered _agents "in the double digits." Carter could not help but chuckle at the notion that the Void Talkers' worst enemy wore such a face. There was no mention of what he had done, but his captor was promised an undescribed reward.

Hundreds of men and women attended the sendoff assembly, cloaked and masked – each and every one of them having proved their abilities to the Void Talkers by some deadly trial. There was not a surviving faction of comparable strength – Carter was sure of that. Caius meant to relay instructions that had been sent to him directly from the Navajo Region in the far west by some Doctor Cassius Knox, apparently one of their bigwigs. Carter raised an eyebrow at that; cellular networks had long since fallen, and the internet was equally dead, but for all he had seen, he found little difficulty in envisioning that the Void Talkers had managed figure out some way to communicate with each other across such distances.

The directives were vague, and saturated with occultist nonsense about "extending our reach to the void" and other similar fanatical rabble. "You have been watched, and you have been judged, Void Talkers," he went on in that creepy, droning voice of his. "The day has come. Go now, brothers and sisters, and gather your belongings. The hour of ascension is at hand!" With that, the audience dispersed to take their places at their assigned convoys.

As per the instructions, Carter had packed a backpack with some travel necessities. Black-cloaked and masked, with a dark feeling that he may never see his home again, he closed all the blinds, and locked his front door behind him. Outside, the roads were lined with what had once been school buses, now painted matte black, and most of them already seating more Void Talkers than he had even reckoned to exist. Each and every one of them was supposed to be equipped with special jamming devices. Their own capsules had updated firmware so that they would still function, but the signal would supposedly lock enemy poké balls within a certain radius.

He stopped by Lilith's cabin first, giving up after at least five minutes of knocking with no reply. At the very least, he was relieved to find himself directed to an intersection with two idling black hummers, which appeared to be the faction's favorite vehicle. He approached, and the drivers rolled down their windows.

"Name?" asked Torman, the officer driving the second car.

"Carter."

The driver nodded, and the back door unlocked with a pop. Carter entered to find himself the third passenger, among Lark beside the driver, and Steph to his right. He only recognized them by their exposed mouths. Torman was mostly a stranger to him, but he was relieved to see two trainers alongside which he had battled at the forest's edge. Steph and Lark were not villains in his mind. They nodded to each other solemnly, and then minutes passed without a word. Black buses drove by, making their way out of the village and into the mists, out onto the empty rural roads. Finally, the driver mounted a tablet computer on the dashboard, apparently displaying global position coordinates to somewhere, and then they were off.

They departed among a small fleet of matte black buses. The convoy made its way through the austere backroads of the pine barrens, the hummers eventually breaking away from the rest at a turn to merge onto the highway. The other car was never more than fifty feet ahead. The driver appeared to be following a red dot on the map, somewhere a good ten miles south of the swerving blue line that practically cut the region in half – the Alachia River. Carter wanted to ask if that was the target described by the dossier, but he knew better. Part of him did not want to know – if the Void Talkers had a global tracking device attached to this enemy of theirs, the same device could just as easily be attached to him. He shuddered at the thought. Nothing at all seemed to be beyond their capabilities, and only a fool would think such a thing to be morally beneath them.

They drove without stop. The mists disappeared behind them sometime around noon. They continued along highway roads, dodging abandoned cars and evading potholes and cracks and weeded ruptures in the pavement. During their time as scavengers for the Falling Stars, Carter and Jaden had often lamented the eventual, inevitable degradation of the roads to rubble. Minutes became hours, and Carter's mind wandered as he watched forests and hills and buildings grow into view and then slip into the distance behind them. Crumbling structures, empty roads. _A broken world._

The rise of the Void Talkers seemed inevitable, as he mused the thought. The factions of the world, White Lightning, Valiant Undying, Kings of the Crop, Evergreen Knights, Weller's Warriors, Wild Beastmasters, Shining Minds, Sons of the Sea, Midnight Matadors, Falling Stars – they were glorified tribes. They were a techno-mockery of the hunter-gatherer communities of the earliest men and women, scavenging for survival and defending their territories like feral, subhuman creatures. Selfish, paranoid, and hateful, different factions rarely trusted each other. The world was waiting for such ambition as that which motivated the Void Talkers, to raise the strongest to a platform from which they might conquer the remnants of the world. Divided peoples struggling to feed their own never stood a chance against such a sweeping entity – it was never more than a matter of time and will.

The Void Talkers were brutal, without argument. Traitors and deserters died wherever they were judged guilty, and their pokémon either redistributed among the trusted, or released to the wilderness. Absent competition, their word was law. Carter loathed the thought, but he could identify no alternative. They ruled by fear – but what other power could they possibly claim? Modern folk preferred to forget, but the earliest empires were erected and protected by strength of military alone. Raised in a world of evidence and trials and appeals and rights and retrials, to remove a man's hand for a crime would seem barbaric, but when only the fittest survive, on what else can society thrive? In the days of kings and queens, men were beheaded for speaking treason. It was not cruel then – it was order, and stability. Perhaps brutality was needed, if society would rise again. Perhaps this was the hard truth that the Void Talkers had long since accepted. Perhaps their rituals and uniforms and fanaticisms were nothing but a scare tactic; a shadow on the wall; the illusion of power. Can cruelty in the interest of the greater good truly be called evil?

Carter relived the assembly in his dreams, in some bleak, dark mockery of the village that had come to be his home. He looked about a crowd of silent black masks, arranged in a circle around Caius on his wooden platform, arms extended and hands raised to the starless heavens. He spoke no words. He looked to his left at the man beside him. The mask fell away to reveal Jaden's face, pale and sullen, blue eyes weary and lightless. Carter tried to shout his name, but he could not hear his own voice. Jaden's jaw dropped open, and flesh became dust as his face dissolved away to bone, hollow sockets staring at nothing. Another mask fell, and Erik crumbled away to his right. And then another, and another. Penny's face, Steph's. Black cloaks dropped to the ground in swirling clouds of dusk. "Weak," said Lilith's voice, from nowhere. "You're better."

He woke to total darkness out his window, and only the red taillights of the other car ahead. They had just stopped, and Carter's bladder was full to bursting. A quick glance at the electronic map placed their location at the Alachia River – practically on top of the red dotted destination, blinking in place. The other hummer's doors swung open, and four black-cloaks emerged. "Alright, this is it!" said Torman as he killed the engine and sprinted outside, Lark and Steph stumbling over themselves to follow suit.

Carter was the last one out, half-awake and half-delirious. They had stopped their cars at the foot of a raised drawbridge. The others were shouting and running off the side of the road into the surrounding pines, shining flashlights as gusts of wind pushed branches and rustled the forest. "We know you're here Zed!" Torman shouted into the woods. "Come out now, and come out peacefully, and we promise you mercy!"

_Mercy._ Carter thought mockingly while he remained with the cars, watching the others swarm down the wooded slope towards the water from the highway. Light flickered among the trees as capsules opened, releasing pokémon in a cacophony of battle cries and attack commands. Hoping to drain the sneasel while everyone was distracted, he made his way to the woods on the opposite side of the road.

"Get off me!" shouted a strangely familiar voice as he was relieving himself on a tree. He pushed, and made himself finish, and then turned around to find another black-cloak dragging Jaden out of the booth by his shaggy brown hair, kicking and screaming. Inside lay three sleeping bags, and a small mountain of random supplies.

"I've got one!" declared Aidan, dropping Jaden to the ground as Carter rushed to join them. Mouth agape and brows raised, for the first time, he was glad to have the mask.

"Fuck you!" shouted Jaden as he pulled himself to his feet, only to be knocked back down by a swift kick to his chest. He landed on his back, groaning. "Fucking Void Talkers! Where's Penny?"

Carter was without words. He had not thought Penny and Jaden to have survived, but he could feel no relief. How he had come into the company of the faction's number one baby-faced enemy beggared explanation, but the Void Talkers were less likely to ask questions than they were to simply kill him for it.

Steph retreated back up the slope with her chesnaught, as well as Allin, flanked by his arcanine and magmortar.

"Lark fell in the river trying to cross!" Steph shouted frantically. "We have to help him!"

"If he doesn't come out of that water on his own, there's nothing we can do to save him," said Allin, dryly. "He's probably been dragged half a mile by now."

Torman was screaming to the highway from the riverbank as he made his way up the slope, "Lower the bridge! We can't cross this water!"

Carter looked out to the river to find another black-cloak fording the water on the back of a milotic - Lilith. Jaden cried out as Aidan delivered another kick to his ribs.

"You heard the man!" he shouted, leaning over Jaden's face. "Lower the bridge!"

"I can't – we tried. The controls don't work."

"Burner," said Allin as he made a gesture towards Jaden, and his magmortar stepped forth and pointed its arm-cannon pointblank at his head. The color drained from his face as he raised his hands in his defense, green eyes wide open. Aidan and Allin surrounded him at opposite sides.

"What should we do with him?" mused Aidan. "He wasn't in the dossier."

"He knows the target, and he knows who we are," replied Allin. "He has information."

"I don't know anything!" shouted Jaden, obviously shaken. "I don't even know who he is – I was following him because I had nowhere else to go!"

"He's shitting us," said Aidan with a snort.

Carter chewed his lip. The Void Talkers would beat Jaden to death for an answer, but vouching for his innocence carried the risk of extending affiliation with the enemy to himself.

"No!" Jaden went on. "I was lost, and I ran into him! I don't know what he did to you but I had nothing to do with it!"

"What the fuck are you doing!" bellowed Torman from the side of the road. "I said get that bridge down! He's teleported across the fucking river!"

Jaden cried out as Allin kicked him in the belly, his magmortar's cannon still pointed at his head.

"We won't keep being nice about this!" Allin said with an evil grin. He was enjoying himself, "Get in that booth and do it!"

"I told you!" Jaden pleaded. "We tried and it didn't work!"

"I didn't tell _him_ to do anything!" screamed Torman, already far beyond his patience. "Allin, _you_ get in that booth before I throw you in the water!"

Without a word, Allin turned to the booth at his superior's direction. His face was masked, but his frustration was manifest in his footsteps as he made his way to the control panel inside. The magmortar lowered its cannon from Jaden's head. Torman stood in place, arms crossed impatiently, black cloak swaying in the wind.

"Can I get up?" asked Jaden, hesitantly. When no one replied, he began to pull himself to his feet.

"You stay down!" barked Torman, as Jaden dropped back down and sat cross-legged on the pavement. "Allin!" he screamed at the booth. "What the hell are you doing in there!"

"It's no good!" he replied, stepping over Jaden's mountain of supplied to get outside. "The kid was right. We're not getting these cars across this bridge."

Torman pursed his lips in frustration. His target was escaping, and there was nothing he could do about it. He stepped to Jaden and knelt beside him.

"Who are you?" he asked in a chilling tone.

"I'm Jaden Slifer, I'm a pokémon trainer."

"And you've been helping Doctor Albarn quite a bit."

"No! I swear, I don't know anything about that!"

Torman was still as boulder, only kneeling in place, studying Jaden's scared face from behind his black mask. Carter's breathing had become manual – he had to save Jaden, but not in a way that would incriminate himself.

"Then who _are_ you?"

"I'm a member of the Falling Stars."

Steph turned to Carter. He could only see her mouth, but no doubt she was in shock.

"The Falling Stars have fallen," Torman went on, smugly. "Their members have sworn themselves to the void."

"I was away on a mission," Jaden continued. "But I got lost, and I didn't know what to do, and I ran into him, and he offered to help me. That's it – I didn't help him do anything!"

Carter finally spoke up, "He's telling the truth."

Jaden's brows raised as he recognized the voice of his friend. Torman stood and turned to him, saying nothing.

"He's from my faction - my old one. We were on a mission together, but we were separated during a battle with some bandits at a roadside recharging station," Carter lied. "I would have assumed him dead when he never returned."

Torman remained silent.

Jaden caught on, "I was lost, and I was starving, and I had no chance of getting back to base alive. I met Zed, and he agreed to let me follow him. I had nowhere else to go."

"Stand up," Torman finally replied.

Jaden pulled himself up, dusting his faded blue jeans and gray wool jacket with his hands. "You're a very lucky boy," he said, coolly. "Allin, Aidan, bind him."


	14. Outside the Box

Marlo

Marlo had lost count of days, and the boredom was crippling. Dormer's pessimism had ruined _Worlds beyond Ultra Space_ for her, and she often found herself wandering the windowless, underground research facility in search of something – anything to occupy her time. Seren had not spoken to her since she punched him, much to her relief. She found herself constantly revisiting the library on the second-to-lowest level to glance over the same book titles, each time hoping to notice something that she had overlooked the last time. Still, the thought of other people, other societies, in ultra space intrigued her. _It's not fair._ Dormer had his own reasons for opposing a human transmigration, but who was he to say that Marlo could not roll the dice on her own?

She sat cross-legged on the floor, dressed lazily in a white tee shirt and a pair of black sweatpants that she found in the laundry room, reading a strange little book, attributed to some library she had never heard of. _Sinnoh Folk Tales _was a recitation of ancient legends, a cute little collection that Marlo hoped would help her escape reality for a few sweet moments. The inside cover was the color of gold, and as reflective. She parted her hair down the middle. It had grown in more than she thought, and black roots were showing against the platinum blonde dye. She opened to the first folk tale,

"_Pick clean the bones of pokémon caught in the sea or stream._

_Thank them for the meals they provide, and pick their bones clean_

_When the bones are as clean as can be, set them free in the water from which they came._

_The pokémon will return, fully fleshed, and it begins anew."_

Marlo smiled at that. Turning back to the cover, she reviewed the title. _Sinnoh._ She had never heard of it. She found the backbreaking world atlas where she had left it on the shelf and opened it to the index. There was no nation or region in the world with that name. Perhaps it referred to a particular culture, or to some old place that had been called that in the past – why else would Sinnoh be absent from the world atlas? The book was tagged on its back cover, with a printed barcode label displaying "Canalave City Library." She narrowed her brow as checked the index of towns and cities three times over, finding no match. Marlo was certain by now – this book had been written in another universe. By some great cosmic coincidence, she understood the words and the language clear as day, but the man or woman behind the text was not of this world.

Awash with wonder, Marlo folded the book of folk tales under her arm and wandered into the hallway, daydreaming like a little girl. _Sinnoh._ Dormer would make fun of her. Suddenly, the lights facility went dark. A strange, almost otherworldly sound hummed through the walls, and then they flickered back on. Dormer's voice boomed from the staircase at the end of the hall. "Magnificent! Magnificent! Maaaaaaagnificent!"

With one eyebrow raised and _Sinnoh Folk Tales_ under her arm, Marlo made her way downstairs towards the lowermost chamber, where Dormer had been performing tests and experiments day and night. The door was wide open, and a queer blueish-white light was spilling out into the hallway. Peeking inside, she found the source to be the metal arch in the center of the chamber, to which all of the computer consoles were connected by wires and tubes of varying breadths. Within the borders of the arch glowed a flickering light that seemed to defy the eye as it changed and morphed in shifting, almost psychedelic patterns. It looked as though one could step through to some blinding world beyond imagination.

Dormer was dancing and laughing with a mostly empty one liter bottle of brown whiskey. "I owe you an apology, young lady," he said, slurring his words as he stumbled towards her. Marlo was nearly knocked from her feet as he drunkenly swung an arm across her shoulders, jabbing the forefinger of his free hand towards the glowing archway. "Do you know what that means?" His breath reeked of alcohol.

Marlo stammered for an answer. She had never seen him like this.

"It means we can finally leave!" he pulled his arm away and sauntered back to the consoles, swaying in his steps with drunken joy as his gray curls bounced about his head.

"Wait," she finally spoke up. "You said you owe me an apology. Why?"

"Because you made this possible!" He continued to fiddle with the console controls, the archway shining brightly still. "Remember that little conversation we had? About the other worlds? Well that got me thinking. You see, this whole time I've been trying to stop the portals – but that's no good, because if you open a portal on one side, and you block the portal on the other, you get a big explosion. The engineers who designed these things were smart. They built in a failsafe, so no matter what, the portals open. The machines see code that would stop a portal, and they ignore it. I spent days trying to get around that, but I couldn't do it. But then you! You got me thinking outside the box, with all your talk of other worlds. That was it – that was the solution! So I wrote in a redirect. That's a portal to ultra space you're looking at right there, but nothing can enter our world through it, because I overlaid another portal, so everything gets redirected somewhere else!" He laughed again, and took a swig from the bottle.

Marlo raised her brow at the sudden gush of information. She had suspected that the machines were capable of opening ultra space portals, but now she was left wondering why Dormer – who so vehemently opposed the idea of traveling to other worlds – wanted to accomplish this in the first place. Everyone knew that The Collapse had been the result of global phenomena called portal storms. But the damage had been done, and the people of the world were more concerned with sustaining themselves than anything else. The different species of ultra beasts were often as hostile to each other as they were to the native creatures of the world, and their numbers dwindled over the following years. What interest could White Lightning have in looking into this now? Dormer had mentioned something about a second Collapse. Were they afraid of another portal storm?

"So that's a portal to ultra space," she said. "What would happen if you walked through?"

"The ultra space wilds," he replied. "That's where you'd go."

"What's that?"

"It's sort of a layman's term that means 'fucking anywhere.' Random portals open in random worlds. Some of them have living things, and even people like us, others don't even have solid ground beneath them. Portals here, portals there – it's a deadly maze. You don't want to find yourself in the ultra space wilds, because you'll likely never find your way home. We've lost too many people that way." To Marlo, never finding her way home did not sound like such a bad thing. She stared into the mesmeric, shifting light of the arch, asking herself what kept her in this world. Dormer flicked a switch, and with a hum, the light went out. She sighed in defeat. "Go get your stuff together," he said as he moved between the consoles and powered everything down. He pulled a removable flash drive from one of the computer ports, and slipped it into his white lab coat pocket. "And tell Seren, too. We're getting the hell out of here."

Disappointed as she was, Marlo was at least relieved to be told that they would finally be leaving the research facility. She went back to the library first and stuffed _Worlds beyond Ultra Space_ and _Sinnoh Folk Tales_ into her backpack, before combing through all the rooms she had frequented to check for anything she might have left behind. She changed her clothes, putting on a black and white plaid flannel shirt over a black tee, and deep blue jeans. Checking the break room, she found Seren munching on a microwaved burrito. Without looking him in the face, she told him they were leaving, and then made her way up the stairs to the elevator on the uppermost level. Seren caught up a few minutes later looking expressionless as ever, Dormer swerving behind him. The drunken scientist stepped forward to enter the access code into the keypad mounted on the wall. The doors opened, and he led them inside. There was a clunk, and a hum, and then they were going up.

Marlo squinted in the sunlight as the three of them stepped outside the shed to the sandy hills. The barrier islands had been blanketed in a cloudy gray haze when they arrived, but now the sky was bereft of clouds, and the blazing sun of high noon was glinting on the gentle waves of the blue sea. Marlo unbuttoned her flannel in the heat as Seren started back towards the mainland. "No, not that way," Dormer corrected him. "We're going back in luxury." Marlo twisted her mouth at that – curious to learn what exactly qualified as luxury in this man's pickled mind.

Dormer led them over another sandy hill, towards a garage-like structure at the water's edge, pointed out towards the ocean, roof covered with solar energy collection panels. A series of large metallic cylinders was arranged in a line around one of its walls – most likely batteries. The building was large as a house, and Marlo wondered if Seren had seen it from the back of his dragon when he flew across the sound. Dormer reached the heavy metal door first, and fumbled with his keys for an embarrassingly long time, drunkenly missing the key slot over and over again as he tried to find the right one.

"You guys are going to fucking love this," he said, still slurring. Finally, he got the door open. He peeked inside, shouted "Holy shit!" and slammed it shut, shock written across his face. Looking to Marlo and Seren, he went on, sheepishly. "So, pokémon trainers, do you remember when we left Benford how I said you were here to protect me?" A strange shriek rang from inside. Dormer stumbled backwards from the door, falling on his butt as a xurkitree burst through, screeching and loosing lightning from its wiry limbs.

Seren immediately hurled a poké ball into the air, calling out his salamence. The winged creature took to the sky with a roar as the alien creature screeched and threw lightning at its new foe. The dragon dove, and swerved, and rose, narrowly avoiding electrified bolts. Marlo followed suit, calling out Morto, her gengar. "Shadow ball!" she commanded, pointing to the ultra beast while it sprinted into the hills, kicking up plumes of sand with its wiry limbs as it continued to pursue Seren's salamence. Grinning in that cute, sinister way of his, Morto launched a hunk of ghostly energy towards the xurkitree. The attack missed, exploding on the ground next to its target and blowing up a cloud of dust and sand.

"Jupiter, dragon pulse!" ordered Seren as his dragon swooped around in the air towards the ultra beast, and then bombarded the ground with a carpet of draconic energy, drawing a blazing blue line across the land. The xurkitree shrieked and flailed as it was engulfed in the strange blue flames. Dormer pulled himself from the ground, and stumbled inside.

"Sludge bomb!" she commanded as her gengar garnered toxic material between its hands, and then hurled forth a putrid, blobby projectile. The ultra beast was still reeling from the sudden blaze of Jupiter's draconic breath that it seemed to hardly notice the attack before a harsh blast of rancid sludge erupted underneath it. Screeching, the alien lost its footing, planting its lanky, wiry body in the sand.

Dormer was yelling from inside, "Come on! Get in! Let's go!" Marlo followed his voice into the aquatic garage to find him standing at the console of a boat. It was a pretty, white thing, probably at least forty feet long, with a bright red canopy roof, and a big electric motor mounted on the back, surrounded by a raised concrete platform. Double doors began to slide open at the other end as the sea poured in to equalize the water levels. She jumped as the motor started with a loud, abrupt hum, and then hopped from the platform onto the aft section of the deck as Morto caught up behind her, phasing intangibly through the wall as he so often did in favor of doorways. Marlo returned her gengar to his capsule as Seren rushed in, just barely making the jump as Dormer began to accelerate out, splashing the walls and platform with a salty spray. With that, they were off.

Marlo looked back towards the sandy hills, platinum hair whipping all around her head, to find the xurkitree defeated, roasting in a bath of blue flames while Jupiter continued to strafe the ground with its cruel breath. As the boat left the coastline, the dragon looped around, heading towards its trainer. Seren held out a poké ball, and reencapsulated his salamence as it approached.

"That fucking thing was feeding on my batteries," said Dormer, shouting to overcome the rushing air as the boat pushed through the waves.

"You're sure you're okay to drive this thing?" asked Seren, his moppy brown hair pushed back out of his face by the wind.

"You shut the fuck up."


	15. The Castle Falls

Rose

They had finally arrived. One path lead to the Alachia Pokémon League, an austere mountain passage through which two cars could barely pass abreast. Burron promised that his ground-type pokémon rendered the road impassable, but the Void Talkers were obviously more resourceful than he envisioned. He had boasted the castle unreachable, but now Valiant Undying was trapped between the mountains and the invaders. A fleet of what appeared to be black school buses had parked in a line encircling the outer walls, stretching down the winding, rocky pass, as far as anyone could see from the castle. A black hummer had pulled up to the portcullis, headlights illuminating the dark courtyard through the iron bars, casting long, blocky shadows and honking periodically every five minutes or so, for about ten seconds each time. Dozens of cloaked, masked figures strolled ominously around the convoy, which had likely transported hundreds more. Including noncombatants, the invaders had Valiant Undying outnumbered two-to-one by Rose's most optimistic estimation.

Damon sat pensively in his council seat, stroking his hand across his bald head as he so often did when he was nervous or agitated, gaze locked downward. He wore a plaid red and white flannel shirt, complete unbuttoned, over a white tee shirt and a pair of faded black jeans that he had been wearing for the last three or four days at least. His brown eyes were bloodshot, and bagged with stress. He had sent each of the Elite Four to different factions to gather information, and only two returned.

"I think they want to parley," said Burron, scratching uncomfortably at the tight black curls on the back of his neck.

Damon said nothing at first. He turned around, facing the envoy from White Lightning who had arrived in Shay's proxy on the back of a pidgeot, a plucky blond-haired boy of about seventeen. "You," he said. "This looks like your last chance. Go. This isn't your fight."

"Champion… They'll be expecting an answer from me," the messenger replied, gingerly. The same threat had apparently been sent to his faction. According to White Lightning, the Void Talkers had taken control of old facilities previously owned by AetherCorp, and were capable of opening ultra space wormholes and releasing whole armies of ultra beasts. They planned to strike back, by seizing the central hub in Imperia City, from which all portal generators across the planet could be disabled. White Lightning wanted Valiant Undying to send whatever reinforcements they could. The notion that the faction could command the powerful ultra beasts was troubling to Rose, to say the least. Damon only blinked at that and asked why Shay had not returned, to which the boy had no answer.

The champion inhaled sharply in frustration. He was at his wit's end. "You tell them Valiant Undying has its hands full," he said, fuming. "And you tell that bastard deserter Shay, if you see him, that I'll be looking for him if I'm still alive when all this is over."

The boy looked like a stantler in headlights. He only nodded, before sinking away into the halls, closing the ornate double doors behind him and leaving the remaining Pokémon League admins alone in the council chamber. Damon pressed his forefingers to his temples. An army stood at his doorstep, and the members of Valiant Undying quivered behind stone walls, looking to him for guidance and protection in the face of war. All of the arduous battles and rigorous training of his pokémon career had not prepared him for this. Rose chewed her lip uncomfortably.

"So, should we go meet these people?" asked Burron, gingerly. "Or are we going to wait for them to come in first?"

"We have strong walls," said Rose nervously, trying to convince herself more than anyone else.

"Even if that was enough to stop them, they would just starve us out," he replied, flatly. "Medieval armies used that tactic against this very castle."

Damon stood up from his seat and began pacing the room, bloodshot eyes fixed to the floor. Rose had never seen him like this.

"I can't help but wonder though," continued Burron. "What's the worst that would come of our surrender? "I mean, they clearly have us outnumbered, and most of our members are not fighters. It might be the best move. What are we doing up here anyway? We're just a band of survivors, and so are they. Maybe if we just submit to them, they'll leave us in peace."

"They want something from us, obviously," said Rose, grimly. "And I don't think that it's peace."

"Yeah, of course they want something, and it looks to me like they're going to get it with or without our permission, so we might as well not piss them off. We were three of the strongest trainers in the region – possibly even the world. But we can't take on an army."

Rose said nothing. Burron was right – they were backed into a corner. Mercy might be their only chance, but what mercy could they hope to expect from these mysterious invaders? Whatever their motivations, their goal was conquest, and only a fool would appeal to the compassions of a conqueror.

Damon stopped in place. "I'm going to negotiate," he said, solemnly, as he opened the double doors and stepped out of the council chamber.

"Me too," said Rose, standing up from her seat and following him out into the hall.

"No," he replied sharply, as he turned left and descended the spiral stairs. "I'm going alone."

Rose turned right, and followed another staircase upwards, Burron following behind her. She turned through another corridor, crowded with terrified eyes. Children, women, men, and pokémon, shivering and huddled together inside their precious stone walls. They had come to feel safe under the protection of Champion Damon and his Elite Four, but in the face of the Void Talkers, the illusion was stripped away. These people were docile, disorganized, scared, and ripe for the slaughter. They pushed through heavy iron-studded oak doors onto the castle battlements, looking to the courtyard through stony crenellations among more uneasy onlookers under the crisp, starry night sky.

The black hummer was still idling just beyond the outer walls, headlights shining obnoxiously through the iron bars of the portcullis. It honked again for a few seconds. The other members watched the courtyard with anxious eyes as the front gate opened below, and Damon stepped outside, shielding his face from the light with his hand. He stopped in the middle of the courtyard, and Rose could feel the eyes of the entire castle on the back of their champion as he detached his blaziken's poké ball from his belt. The portcullis was raised with an eerie, rusty shriek.

"Invaders," he called out in his champion's voice, as he used to call to his spectators and fans in the old days. "I am Damon Hall, Champion of the Alachia region, and the head of Valiant Undying. I want to speak to your leader."

The car pulled in, and then went dark. Valiant Undying watched nervously from above as a black-cloaked man with a white sash across his chest stepped out of the car, and entered the courtyard, wearing a black mask that covered his whole face above the mouth. He spoke, matching the champion's volume in his creepy, droning voice, "Our leader is very far away, and much too busy for the likes of this. I am called Caius, and I speak for the Void Talkers in this time and place. I trust that you've received our message?"

"We have," he replied, confidently.

"Do you surrender?"

"We do not."

"That's unfortunate," the black-cloak said, unsympathetically.

"Hear my proposal, Caius," Damon continued. "Innocent men and women don't need to be hurt for this."

"They don't," he interrupted. "And they won't, if you surrender."

"Name your strongest trainer, and I will battle him. Six pokémon against six. If he can defeat me, then Valiant Undying is yours."

Rose and Burron exchanged an uncertain look with each other. Other spectators gossiped in hushed voices as Damon stood before the invaders, waiting for their response. Rose stroked her long yellow hair impulsively. She could identify no reason for the Void Talkers to accept his challenge when their numbers alone assured them victory. Leaders of ancient nations sometimes challenged opponents to single combat in lieu of a skirmish between armies, and it had always been a pathetically desperate move.

Finally, Caius replied, "I accept your challenge." He drew a poké ball from inside his cloak. "I will be your opponent."

Damon stepped back to allow room for the impending battle. "Let's go!" he cried, hurling his poké ball forth. It sailed through the air, and then fell to the ground, to no effect.

Rose's brow flared in disbelief as she watched the capsule roll through the dirt and grass. "It... failed," she said under her breath. A few spectators gasped.

Caius called out a charizard. The creature roared as it materialized from the poké ball and took flight, spitting embers and illuminating the courtyard with flickering orange light. Spectators gasped and ducked behind the crenellations as it soared over their heads, and then circled back downwards. "Flamethrower!" he commanded as his pokémon swooped from above, and strafed the ground with a stream of fire. Rose and Burron looked in horror as their champion was engulfed screaming in flames, and the onlookers battlements descended into a frenzy. The charizard flapped its wings, holding itself in place, sustaining the inferno for longer than Rose could make herself look. The screaming stopped, the light faded, and Damon was a pile of ash and bone. Some screamed, a few ran inside, and a couple of people fainted as the members of Valiant Undying realized that they were defenseless. Caius raised a hand into the air, and an army of black-cloaks began to pour in from beyond the outer walls. Rose tapped at the poké balls at her belt, finding them unresponsive. Whatever had disabled Damon's capsules was also affecting hers. She bolted back inside, Burron following behind her and calling her name.

Rose sprinted through the castle corridors as the members of Valiant Undying fell to chaos. Men panicked, women screamed, and boys and girls of all ages huddled together, trembling like rattatas trapped on a sinking ship. Their champion was dead, and the invaders had passed the outer walls and were beginning to siege the castle itself.

"Rose, we have to surrender!" Burron shouted from below as she climbed a spiral staircase.

"We had our chance for that!" she shouted back, frantically. "They're already attacking us – they're not going to stop!" _Stupid Damon._ _Stupid, proud Damon._

She pushed past throngs of panicking men and women and threw open another set of heavy oaken double doors to a balcony overlooking the opposite side of the castle, pointed towards the impassable mountains. A cacophony of shouts and battle commands rose from the courtyard below as black cloaked figures shouted orders to a small army of large, horrible ultra beasts with gargantuan maws – guzzlords. The monsters ate everything organic and not: pokémon, people, dirt, wood, stone, and anything else in front of them. Rose thought it impossible, but the Void Talkers had managed to encapsulate ultra beasts in poké balls. At their command, the monsters tore at the castle with their pincers as though it had been built from gingerbread.

Tears welled in her eyes. Rose had fought countless battles in her day, against trainers from all corners of the world, but only during The Collapse itself had she felt such peril – such fear as she did now. The end of the world had come and gone, and she counted herself among those strong enough to defy extinction. But now the demons of hell itself had come to collect their dues, and she could do nothing but run. She detached a poké ball from her belt, praying that she had climbed high enough to escape whatever disabled it. With her fingers crossed, she activated the capsule, and felt a wave of relief wash through her as her tropius, Zowi materialized in the air above her and then lowered gently to the balcony.

"Rose, no!" cried Burron as he watched her mount her flying-type pokémon.

"We can't fight them!" she wailed, her voice breaking with emotion. "Get on!"

"These are our people! We can't abandon them!"

"This is your last chance!"

"Rose! No!"

"Hup hup!" she called to Zowi as the tropius flapped her leafy wings and took to the cool night air. She held onto her pokemon's neck, squeezing tightly as they left the Alachia Pokémon League behind, Burron screaming her name from the balcony. Shay was still out there, travelling with White Lightning to Imperia City – that's where she would go. She closed her eyes, and silently begged the heavens for mercy as she flew higher and higher above the consuming madness.

Caius's charizard roared from below. Rose looked down to see the winged beast rising to the sky with its black-cloaked trainer on its back. "Hyah! Hyah!" he called to his mount, clearing hundreds of feet in mere seconds.

Her heart pounding, she slapped her tropius on the back, "Come on, girl!" Zowi flapped her wings faster and faster, sailing towards the snowcapped mountains ahead.

"Hyah!" Caius was still gaining on them. "Fire blast!" he commanded, as his pokémon began to garner thermal energy between its jaws.

"Zowi! Evade!" Rose commanded, desperately, tears streaming down her cheeks.

Caius's charizard unleashed a massive fireball from its mouth with a roar. The tropius cried out as the flaming projectile exploded at her belly in a blinding flash of light, and a scorching wave of heat. The force of the blow sent Zowi reeling through the air, while her trainer was flung from her back. Rose closed her eyes once more as she plummeted, screaming and spiraling towards the deadly ground.


	16. Remnants of Kindness

Penny

They ran for the whole night after losing Lilith in the woods, and Penny's legs were screaming. At the cost of Jaden and almost all of their supplies, they managed to lose the Void Talkers at the river, but Zed refused to slow his pace for fear of being caught. "They're not the only search team," he kept insisting. "They're just the one that found us first." He thought that they had been tracked by the global positioning system of his satellite phone, which was now at the bottom of the Alachia River, but he took no chances nonetheless. Sometime before sunrise, they found themselves faced down by three wild buzzwhole, but Yubel dispatched them easily. Penny tried to help with her heatmor, but Sniffer's assistance seemed to make no difference. By dawn, Penny had drained her eyes dry for Jaden, and neither she nor Zed had the strength for any better than a hustled walk.

Their brief battle with Lilith replayed in her head again and again. _Of course she would join them._ She could only wonder what that meant for Jaden. Lilith had always hated Penny, and she never seemed to think much better of him. She only ever seemed to respect Carter and Karina – the strongest. But if they had recruited her, they had probably recruited him too. Carter was not evil, but if faced with a choice between joining and dying, he was not the sort to sacrifice himself. He would vouch for Jaden, whatever good that may do for him in the face of these ruthless people. They wanted Zed dead, and Jaden was his affiliate.

Zed was still committed to his mission, which rendered Penny with little option but to follow him to Imperia City, where they would likely encounter the Void Talkers again, if not something worse. The whole prospect tied her guts in knots. Everywhere she went, she found enemies. _How did the world come to this?_ They were all survivors, and yet they would rather kill each other than help each other. She had not the mettle for it – all that she could ever seem to do in the face of danger was flee, and fleeing had left her with nothing.

They avoided the roads at all costs, which Penny thought only slowed them down, but she knew better than to argue with Zed. His calm, confident demeanor had melted away with the emergency warning from his father that the Void Talkers had uncovered their plot to disable the portal generators from the central hub. His mind was frayed, and he seemed certain of nothing beyond their ultimate destination. _He doesn't know anything._ _He was just following his dad's instructions all along._

The trees became sparser as they pressed onward. Eventually the forest ended at the edge of a massive parking lot that may have been as large as all of Pinehaven, surrounding an almost perfectly cubicle five story building that must have been at least as large. It was mostly empty, save for some broken cars with missing wheels and windows that resembled the intricate webs of predator bug-type pokémon. "D.P.'s Department Store" was displayed in big, fat letters in boisterous shades of red and yellow across a billboard at the entrance, where the lot opened up to the road. Penny had been here once with her parents, when she was a little girl, in the days when the world was right. A quick glance at Zed's face was all she needed to know that he did not want to go inside, but they had abandoned their supplies, and hunger was too persuasive. He still had his backpack, but most of their food has been left behind at the bridge. Retractable steel curtains were extended over the entrance, but Zed's porygon-z, Zeroday, made short work of the security, entering the computer system with the ease of a man entering a room. Penny cringed as the awful shriek of the raising metal barrier rattled up her spine.

Stepping inside felt like a step through time. In contrast to most places she had looted with Carter's salvaging team, D.P.'s Department Store was surprisingly pristine. Shelves and displays were all in order, tile floors polished to a sheen, and colorful promotional images hung from the walls and ceiling. Even the water fountain in the lobby still worked. The store was stocked in all directions – clothes, furniture, lawn decorations, plush toys, household appliances, toiletries, odds and ends, and trinkets galore. A series of halted escalators rose from the center of the store, leading to the higher levels. Penny followed the signs that directed customers to the different sections. Zed followed her up the first escalator, and then split away from her as he continued up to the third floor.

Penny's heart sank as she reached the food section to find it mostly raided. Freezers lined the wall, almost completely bare, and rows of shelves labeled for basic ingredients and snack foods were equally empty. _Just our luck._ She wandered the section, surveying the damage. "Someone had an allergy," she chuckled to herself, noticing a treasure trove of peanut-based products left in the corner. Penny swiped a jar of salted peanuts from the shelf, and tore right into them as she went off in search of the travel gear, realizing that she would need a backpack for the road.

"Thunderbolt!" cried a child's voice. Penny turned to see pikachu dart out from behind a display of novelty mugs, squeaking and glowing with electrical energy. An arm of lightning reached out from the little mouse pokémon towards her. She dove to evade, dropping the jar and spilling peanuts all over the floor. She detached the first poké ball she could grab in a panic, and opened the capsule. Cinnamon materialized before her, spraying cinders from his back. She had never used her cyndaquil for battle, but time permitted no second thoughts.

"Ember!" she commanded. Cinnamon pushed himself to his hind legs, and the tile floor began to glow orange as the fire on his back ignited. With a high-pitch squeal, the little echidna pokémon spewed forth a geyser of sparks and weak flames. The pikachu dashed away, disappearing behind another aisle before the attack could reach. Penny clicked her tongue in frustration. She waited for a few moments, expecting a counterattack, but nothing happened. Gingerly, she scooped Cinnamon up in her arms and hustled towards the escalators, hoping to find Zed before someone else found her.

"Quick attack!" cried the child's voice again. A sudden blow slammed into her back, knocking her from her feet and throwing Cinnamon from her arms. She landed on the cruel cold tiles, her pokémon reeling beside her, finding his feet. The same electric mouse stood before her on all fours, squeaking and ready to strike again. Its trainer was a brown-haired boy in a blue polo shirt and khaki shorts who could not have been older than six.

"Smokescreen!" she ordered. Her cyndaquil inhaled, and then the child and his pikachu disappeared inside a murky cloud as he carpeted the air with plumes of slate-colored smoke. The boy shouted another attack as weak jolts of electricity reached through the smoke in random places. Cinnamon responded with another geyser of embers as Penny commanded another attack. The battle raged on, the two little pokémon exchanging flurries of sparks and shocks at the commands of their trainers. The smoke was gradually dispersing, and she could see the boy's face growing increasingly agitated as he shouted orders to his pikachu, often faster than the little mouse could act. But Cinnamon was growing tired – he had never battled another pokémon before.

"Volt tackle!" The pikachu took an offensive stance on four legs, bending low as if ready to pounce, and Penny cringed as a harsh light enveloped its body. In a blinding flash, the mouse leaped forward, and both pokémon cried out as its body slammed into Cinnamon, sending him reeling and sliding across the tile floor. She stood, mouth agape as her cyndaquil collapsed into a defeated slump. "Again!" the boy shouted, pointing at Penny. His pikachu was panting, and looked likely to faint at any moment. The exhausted mouse strained itself in preparation for a second volt tackle. She reached for another poké ball as harsh light appeared around its body once again, and then flickered out in an instant. An unseen force yanked the mouse pokémon into the air, rendering it helpless as it kicked and squeaked in place. Zed rushed down the escalator, his gardevoir levitating beside him, using its psychic abilities to hold the mouse in place. The boy stood in place, mouth agape.

"Hey not fair!" the child cried out. "Let him go!"

Zed and Penny exchanged a confused look as he took her side. "I'll let him go if you stop attacking us," he replied as she returned her battered cyndaquil to his capsule.

The kid pouted. He groaned loudly in frustration. "Fine," he finally said, crossing his arms in front of him. Zed turned and nodded to Yubel, and the pikachu was released from his psychic hold. The boy's face twisted into a sinister smirk. "Thunderbolt!" The mouse lit up with electrical energy once more, and then was quickly stifled as Yubel telekinetically lifted him to the air, trapped inside of another invisible bubble. The boy cried out again, "Hey!"

"Alright," said Zed, annoyed, walking past the helpless pikachu towards the trainer. "Now I'm pissed off." He raised a hand, and slapped the boy across the face, sending him stumbling to the floor, hands pressed to his face as he began to cry.

"Zed!" shouted Penny in disbelief. "He's like six!"

"Yeah, and you let him beat you!"

Two poké balls opened at the base of the escalator, releasing a stoutland and a furfrou. A man's voice shouted from the escalator, "Take down!" Penny called out her flareon as the canine pokémon rushed forth.

"Flamethrower!" commanded Penny. Piper exhaled a stream of flame towards the furfrou as Yubel dropped the pikachu from his hold and followed suit with psybeam. The furfrou barked and reared at the sight of the blaze, abandoning its attack to flee as the gardevoir's attack struck the stoutland square in the face. The terrier pokémon let out a yelp under the force of the psychokinetic attack, but charged forth nonetheless, throwing its weight forward and missing as Yubel teleported from harm's way at the last moment, repositioning himself behind the frenzied poodle pokémon. The stoutland crashed to the floor, but quickly pulled itself up, rearing for another attack.

A bald, goateed man of about forty was descending the escalator, wearing a white polo shirt and khaki pants – the boy's father, or guardian, most likely. "Take down!" he shouted again as his stoutland threw his weight at Piper, tackling the flareon to the ground and stifling his flamethrower attack.

"Psychic!" ordered Zed as his gardevoir seized the furfrou in a psychokinetic hold, and then hurled it at the stoutland the dogs collided with each other, knocking the terrier over and freeing Piper. At Penny's command, the he followed up with another flamethrower, licking the dog pokémon with a torrent of fire.

"Volt tackle!" screamed the boy, red-faced and hysterical. His pikachu dashed forth, wrapped in lightning, and slammed his body into the flareon, sending him tumbling from his feet, and stopping the blazing stream. The mouse and fox fell together into a beaten slump. The stoutland pulled itself to its feet, while the furfrou remained down. The bald man shouted for another take down attack, and his remaining pokémon charged for Yubel.

"Dazzling gleam!" ordered Zed as his gardevoir loosed a harsh spectacle of bedazzling light, stunning the stoutland and knocking it from its feet. The man's mouth twisted into an uneasy shape that telegraphed his regret as he looked upon his fallen guard dogs. The boy screamed and wailed, and Penny realized that they were fighting a family.

"Everybody stop!" she yelled, returning Piper to his poké ball. "We don't want any trouble!"

"What did you do to my son!" the man bellowed as he rushed passed the fainted pokémon to his crying boy. Yubel warped away to make room for him. Zed had said that gardevoir were empaths, capable of judging a person's entire character just by being in their presence, and observing their emotions and behavior. These were not bad people.

"He attacked us first!" shouted Zed, defensively.

"She hit me!" the son cried, pointing at Zed. "The black-haired girl hit me!"

"I'm not a girl!" protested Zed as the father whipped around with the speed and fluidity of a striking seviper, and slapped him across the face. He stumbled back, shock plain in his odd-colored eyes. Penny snorted in amusement, and even Yubel seemed to laugh a little in his strange, whiny voice.

"How did you even get in here?"

"I could ask you the same question," growled Zed, rubbing his reddening cheek.

"This is where I live, you little faggot!"

"Fuck you!"

Penny cringed as she felt the tension returning. "We're sorry! We were just looking for food. We didn't know anyone was here. Your son and his pikachu attacked me first, and my friend was just trying to protect me – I would never hurt a little kid."

The man crossed his arms, "We've got nothing to spare. Get out."

"Please, we're starving. Just let us take what we can carry, and you'll never see us again."

The man's face bloomed in disbelief, "Take what you can carry? You say that like it's nothing! We don't have an infinite supply here – go rob someone else!"

"Do you want to battle for it?" taunted Zed, gesturing to the fainted pikachu, stoutland, and furfou just a few feet away.

Penny chewed her lip. She would never forgive herself for taking the man's supplies by force, but he was not sharing, and she was not prepared to walk away hungry. He stood brooding before her and Zed, his hand on his sniffling son's shoulder – he knew that he stood no chance.

"Or was that all you got?" Zed went on, smirking.

Another figure caught Penny's eye, descending the halted escalator. It was a woman, probably in her mid-thirties, with long, red hair, and a huge, pregnant belly. She wore a low-cut black dress that looked like it had been taken off one of the store's clothes racks. "What is going on here?" she asked, approaching them with a face that telegraphed equal parts dismay and confusion.

"Trespassers," the man replied, spitting the word as if it were poison.

"We didn't know anyone was here!" exclaimed Penny. "Please, we just want some food for the road. We won't take much."

"Look at what they did!" he bellowed, gesturing to his fallen pokémon.

"Anthony!" scolded the red-haired woman. "Are you blind? They're just kids!"

"Mom! They hurt me!" added the boy.

"I don't want to hear it, Tyler," she growled, placing a hand on Penny's shoulder. "You poor things."

Penny was awash with relief as Zed, Anthony, and Tyler returned the pokémon to their capsules. Scarlet led them to what had been the employee area, now transformed into a cozy sort of home, supplied by the leftover riches of the department store. They had apparently been living there since The Collapse, rarely venturing outside. In all those years, Penny and Zed had been the first to break in. It was comforting to see a family still surviving, though she was troubled by the sight of how low their stockpile of food had fallen. _They won't last forever. We didn't, and they won't._ After sharing in an awkward family meal, Penny grabbed a black canvas backpack from the travel-gear section of the store, and stuffed it with peanut-based products. The father and son were allergic, and she felt guilty taking anything else. She and Zed picked out some new clothes at Scarlet's invitation – she felt no qualms about that. They showered, and with full bellies and bags, they ventured back into the sunny spring air.

"Thank you so much," Penny said to them as she and Zed stepped back to the parking lot. "I could never repay you." She was wearing her a new pair of black jeans, and a pullover hoodie of the same color, chosen from the shelves in memory of running from black-cloaked assailants through the dark woods.

"It was the least we could do," replied Scarlet, grinning, as she waved them goodbye, her husband standing solemnly next to her, and her son pouting beside him. "Sorry for all the trouble."

Zed called out his porygon-z once more, this time commanding it to close the gate and reactivate the security system. "Come on," he said to Penny, walking towards the road. "That big map next to the fountain said that there's a train near here," he said. "We should check it out." She followed him out of the parking lot and down the road crumbling road, all the while checking over her shoulder for anything hostile – or anyone.

Zed led her to a dilapidated station with a five-car bullet train parked at the platform. He checked the route map, and found it leading straight to Imperial City. "These trains draw power from the tracks," he explained. "I'm ninety-nine percent sure that I can make this train work." Penny rolled her eyes at that, remembering hearing almost the exact same claim about the drawbridge controls. But to her relief, the digital pokémon opened the doors with ease, and activated the console. Zed smiled, "Well, we have power." The train wheels squeaked and groaned like some great, dying metal beast, and the bullet train was moving. Zed returned Zeroday to its poké ball and plopped himself in the conductor's seat, lounging lazily with his hands behind his head as he stared out onto the tracks ahead.

"What happens if there's another train blocking the tracks?" she asked.

"Then we get on that one," he replied with a shrug.

Penny leaned up against the wall behind him. Zed seemed relieved to know that Imperia City was now only a train ride away, but it only made her anxious. She wanted to ask him if he thought the Void Talkers would keep Jaden alive, but she feared his answer.

"Hey, Zed," she said, solemnly. "What do the Void Talkers want, exactly?"

"Power," he said, flatly. "Power and control."

"But, to what end? The world is in shambles as it is."

"Yeah, that's exactly it. They want to be in charge. They've spent years in the Navajo region working on the technology since the original portal storms. If they can access the central hub, they can spawn legions of ultra beasts wherever they want, and collapse the portals in such a way that they'll all vanish in almost an instant. They'd be unstoppable. And it doesn't end there. My dad says their leader is completely fucking insane – he has some grandiose vision to tame whole armies of beasts so that he can invade other worlds too."

Her eyes flared in disbelief, "Invade other worlds? Didn't you say something about a cross-dimensional society? That sounded peaceful."

"That was before The Collapse. It wasn't meant to happen, but it did, and now their leader is convinced that the multiverse is too dangerous and that we need an army of ultra beasts large enough to attack a whole world at once. The guy is fucking nuts. Even before The Collapse, I heard he was a little fucked up in the head, but now he's like a comic book supervillain. He thinks he's destined to become 'The King of Worlds' or some shit."

"Your dad told you all this?" Penny asked, a bit skeptically.

"Some of it I heard from the man himself, when I was still in the Navajo region."

"You actually met him? Who is he, anyway?"

"Cassius Knox. He was president of AetherCorp back before The Collapse, when he was still kind of sane."

"So the virus you have, it'll stop all that from happening?"

"Once I execute the file on the main computer, the central hub is supposed to send a bogus update to the whole global network that will make it so no one will ever be able to open an ultra space wormhole again. We just have to get to the gateway hub before they do."

Penny felt a strange sense of empowerment about that. For years, she had only ever fought for the survival of herself and her friends. This talk of other worlds and dimensional invasions was all well beyond her imagination, but Zed was fighting for something greater – for families like Anthony, Scarlet, and Tyler. The Falling Stars were gone, and with them everyone she had known and loved after The Collapse, but she would fight nonetheless.


	17. Goodbyes and Hellos

Shay

The day was muggy. There was not a cloud in the sky, but Benford's waterfront was hazed with the ocean mists, and the air was stubborn and windless. _Summer is coming._ Shay had no recollection of having been brought to White Lightning's headquarters, a gray, boxy, windowless structure that had at one time been a military fortification, with concrete walls poured several feet thick. Apparently most of their members had been hiding within, in the wake of the Void Talkers' threat. The electric rails had been disabled, so as to disperse the xurkitrees, and a small army of pokémon trainers made their way across the street, under the elevated tracks, and down the cement stairs to the shipyards below.

"How's your head?" asked Clara, following her brother outside with her bloated duffel bag. She wore a maroon tank top and black knee-length shorts, and her soft brown hair was tied back in a bun.

"Much better," Shay lied, wiping beads of sweat and sticky strands of brown hair from his forehead. He did not want to ask her about her arm. His skull continued to ache, though it was less intense each day. Clara's broken arm was encased in a cast from shoulder to wrist, hanging by a sling. At the very least, Shay was relieved to have found skilled medical practitioners among White Lightning's ranks. The faction boasted doctors, scientists, and engineers. They had complete control of Benford's power grid, and had even begun the process of developing hydroponic farming facilities to feed their people. Valiant Undying had their castle, and not much else.

He looked out to the water, squinting in the sun as the crowd began to disperse among the docks to the boats, loading them with duffel bags and suitcases, stuffed to the seams with supplies. The time had come to mobilize, and Leon aimed to reach Imperia City by sea. The faction commanded a mismatched fleet of any and every boat that they could salvage from the harbor – fishing boats, recreational vessels, ferries, a handful of wave runners for some reason, and anything else that still floated.

Most impressive to Shay was the yacht further down, _To New Horizons_. It was a huge, beautiful white vessel, built for luxury. It had been a cruise ship in the old world, and White Lightning apparently spent years restoring and maintaining it. The ship could host every member of the faction, multiplied by four, and house them at sea for as long as their supplies will sustain. Combatants would be dispatched to Imperia City, while civilians would be evacuated aboard _To New Horizons_. Leon Dormer and Doctor Knox knew The Void Talkers. They only wanted people, and they would find nothing of value in an empty city.

"Hey, look," Clara said, poking Shay's arm. He followed her gesture to an ebon-skinned man untying some rope securing a fishing of the boats to the dock. "That's him. He's the one who carried me back."

"Ah, I see," replied Shay, feigning interest.

They reached the cement steps leading from street level to the water below. Clara stopped in place, puzzled, as Shay continued onward, towards the yacht.

"Where are you going?" she asked, suspiciously.

Shay stopped and took a deep breath, silently cursing himself for leaving this confrontation for the last minute, "You're not going to Imperia."

Clara was exasperated, hazel eyes flaring in fury, "What?"

"You're getting on the big ship, and you're staying where it's safe."

"I don't need two arms to command my pokémon," she said, stubbornly.

"It's not about your arm, it's about this whole thing being a huge mistake. I never should have taken you with me in the first place."

Clara pursed her lips in frustration.

"Come on," Shay went, teasingly. "Somebody's got to keep Reya company."

"So you're okay with going to Imperia City and never seeing me again."

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves."

"You mean like you're doing? Right now?"

"What?"

"Explain to me why I'm safer on the cruise ship."

"Because all the other boats are going somewhere dangerous," he replied, flatly.

"There's going to be plenty of danger here too, from what I can tell," she shot back.

A mass of brown curls appeared a head taller than most of the crowd, walking their way – Leon Dormer. "This is not up for debate," Shay said, stubbornly.

Clara looked at the ground. "This might be the last time you and I ever see each other," she said, solemnly. "And you wait until now to tell me."

Leon approached with a beaming smile. He was dressed for the sails, in khaki shorts and a white shirt with the top three buttons undone. "Ready to paddle out?" he said, rife with energy.

"Soon enough," replied Shay. "Any word from our envoy?"

Leon shook his head slowly. He had sent an agent to Valiant Undying on Shay's behalf with a message detailing what White Lightning knew about the Void Talkers, or at least what they would permit, as well as their intentions in Imperia City. Doctor Knox insisted that with an enemy faction as their doorstep, time did not permit for a reply. Any forces that may be provided by Valiant Undying to bolster those of White Lightning were directed to the address of the AetherCorp central gateway hub, where The Collapse began.

"No matter," said Leon. "We will do what we must."

"Hey, Leon," interjected Clara. "You're the leader of White Lightning, right?" Shay rolled his eyes, predicting what she would ask him next.

"One of them, yeah," he replied.

"So, I'm going on the mission too, right?"

Leon made an awkward face.

"No, she's not," said Shay, sternly.

"You're not White Lightning!" Clara snapped at her brother. "You can't tell me I can't go!"

Shay was growing increasingly agitated, "You're not White Lightning either. You're Valiant Undying, which means you do what I say."

"Alright guys!" said Leon, abruptly and uncomfortably. "I'll be below." He stepped away, towards the docks as Clara scowled at him from behind.

"Let me make this simple for you," Shay went on. "If you want to go to Imperia City, you'll have to go through me."

They fell to silence as White Lightning's forces continued to pass by them, carrying boxes and bags of supplies to the vessels below while Clara stared at her feet. "Okay," she finally said, in a strangely defiant tone. Without a word, Shay started towards _To New Horizons_ expecting her to follow. He stopped and turned back around when he realized that she was still standing in place. "Let's battle," she said.

Shay's face flared in bewilderment, "You want to battle me?"

"That's what I said," she replied, sassily.

"What are you, high?"

"One versus one."

"You think you can take on a zapdos?" he taunted.

"Anyone but him. One versus one. If I win, I'm going."

Shay smirked. He could think of no better way to ensure his sister's safety than to hinge her inclusion in the mission on a battle with him. "You know what? Alright," he said, arrogantly. "You're on."

Shay and Clara's arena was what had once been tennis courts, a section of Benford City Park fenced off by tall chain links, about three quarters of a mile from headquarters. Like most of the city, the pavement had cracked and eroded over time, creating a webwork of weeds and brush. Most of the paint denoting the boundaries of the court had worn away. With the nets removed, brother and sister had at least one thousand square feet for their battle. In the case of another ultra beast encounter, he asked for a small detachment of trainers to accompany them, promising not to need them for long. Some three dozen men and women eagerly abandoned the docks to watch Shay of the Alachia Elite Four battle. The spectators arranged themselves around the outer fence, faces rife with anticipation. Leon Dormer was among them, smiling and shuffling impatiently in place. Shay chewed his lip – they were expecting a much more interesting battle than they were about to see.

"I'm ready when you are," declared Shay.

Clara reached into to her belt with her good arm, and called out her houndoom. Even from the opposite side of the court, he could see her wince from the sting of her broken arm. This would be no match. Shay released his staraptor from his capsule, and Clara began without a moment's hesitation. "Nasty plot!" Her pokémon took a relaxed stance as it focused its mind in preparation for the fight.

"Brave bird!" commanded Shay. He had to end this quickly – he had to expose her for the child she was. With a few flaps, Ace took flight and soared to the sky, building speed before looping back towards his target.

"Princess!" called Clara as her houndoom rolled away, and spectators cheered as she narrowly dodged the incoming attack. She ordered another attack, "Fire blast!" The staraptor flapped his wings and rose again, swooping upwards just before the fence, and returning to the air as Princess retaliated with a blazing ball of flame. The bird swerved to avoid the incoming projectile, earning another round of shouts and roars.

Ace reared in the air at Shay's command and began to swoop down towards his canine opponent. Clara returned with a flamethrower command, and Shay's staraptor found himself diving headfirst into a stream of fire. Shay clenched his teeth in frustration – she was not going to get the better of him. His pokémon flapped and fell back, swatting at the flames with his wings as he fell to the ground. Princess's fire-type attack, dispersed, and Ace stood before her, wings extended in a predator stance. This bird had endured much worse. "Close combat!" Shay ordered as his staraptor lunged forth, thrashing and beating wildly at the houndoom with beak, claw, and wing. Princess stumped and yelped under the assault, and Clara's desperation was plain on her face.

"Foul play!" she commanded. The canine pokémon sprang back, jaws snapping at the falcon's neck as she reversed the attack. Ace staggered back for a moment, and then Princess was on top of him while the spectators roared.

Shay saw Clara's mouth twist to a smirk, and he knew another fire-type attack was coming. He shouted another order, "Whirlwind!" Ace shoved the houndoom away as he flipped and spun to his feet. He raised his wings and then brought them down with gale force, generating a blast of wind that lifted Princess from her feet and sent her skittering across the pavement in a cacophony of cheers and jeers from beyond the fence.

"Fire blast!" she shouted before her pokémon could even find her footing.

"Brave bird!" replied Shay.

Ace took to the sky once more, looping around above the arena, and then diving downward towards his canine target. Princess struggled to all fours, and then began to prepare another fireball, much too late. The attack was stifled as the staraptor slammed into her at breakneck speed. The houndoom rolled back from the force of the blow, while Ace swooped up just before the fence. Shay's staraptor took his side as Princess collapsed into a defeated slump. He gave his falcon's coat a stroke, and then returned him to his capsule while Clara stared at her fallen pokémon, eyes blank and mouth agape. The fence rattled as the crowd jumped and screamed in excitement. Slowly, Shay approached his sister. They locked eyes for a moment, and then Clara looked away, forcing her attention to Princess as she returned the exhausted houndoom to her poké ball. She was silently fuming.

"Listen," said Shay as the volume began to die. "It's not that I think you're weak." He tapped gently at the plaster cast on her left arm, "It's that I'll never forgive myself for what happened to you, and I'll never forgive myself if I let something like that happen again."

She said nothing, eyes blooming in hazel fury.

"Come on," he said, walking past her and grabbing her duffel bag the chain link gate. She refused to follow him, only going along as the spectators regrouped and began to make their way back towards the waterfront. Most went left, but Shay went right, Clara following reluctantly behind him. Most of the evacuees had apparently already boarded _To New Horizons_. He led her to the ramp that lead to the deck, let her bag down, and wrapped his arms around her in a hug. She squeezed him back with her one good arm, and she began to sob. Shay turned misty-eyed. She was right, earlier – he did not know whether he would come back alive. Such was life, following The Collapse, but the goodbye somehow made it worse. "I love you, kid," he said, as he let her go, and turned from the ramp to rejoin the remaining forces, leaving Clara crying at the foot of the ramp.

The walk back was painful. Shay descended the concrete steps, rubbing the water from his eyes as he reminded himself that it was for the best. Leon stood at the very edge of a pier, beside a white boat with a bright red canopy. At the console stood a tall, long-faced, unshaven man of about fifty or maybe sixty, with a thick head of curly salt-and-pepper hair, wearing a white lab coat over a gray button-down shirt and black dress pants. He was flanked on either side by a lazy looking twenty-something boy with shoulder-length brown hair in a black tee shirt and army camo cargo shorts, and a girl with waist-length white hair in a red-and-white flannel and black jeans who looked about the same age. All three of them had been burned by sun and wind, and they looked exhausted.

"Good to see you again, Doctor Dormer," said Leon, grinning, as the newcomers stepped off the boat onto the concrete pier.

"There are no doctors anymore, Mister Dormer," replied the man at the console. "I was about fifty-fifty on whether you'd get my message."

Leon looked over and gave Shay a nod and gestured him over, "I've found someone interesting. Dad, I want you to meet Shay, of the Alachia Elite Four."

Doctor Dormer laughed, "This is him? This is the guy who killed your career?"

"That he is. And he's going to help us."

The doctor nodded in approval and extended an arm. "Nice to meet you," he said, shaking Shay's hand. "I'm Leon Dormer, senior." He introduced the boy and girl beside him, "This is Seren, and this is Marlo."

"Hi," said Marlo, shyly, waving a hand at him. Shay returned with a polite nod.

Doctor Dormer reached into the pocket of his lab coat and pulled out something that resembled a portable USB device as he turned back to Leon, holding it in front of him. "I want five copies of this – ten copies of this, on ten different sticks, in ten different hands."

"What is that?" asked Shay.

"It's what we're going to use to fuck the Void Talkers right in their asses," replied Doctor Dormer as Leon took it from his hand and placed it in his own pocket. He looked back to his son, "Where's Knox?"

"She'll be joining us sooner or later," replied Leon.

Shay turned around at the sound of a caw from behind. Above them, at street level, a blond-haired teenaged boy was dismounting from a pidgeot – the envoy. He rushed down the concrete steps to the docks towards them, his face looked like it had seen the way to hell and back.

"Valiant Undying has been attacked," he said in a voice that dripped with worry, before anyone else could talk.

Shay's heart dropped. "What happened?"

"The invaders surrounded the walls, demanding surrender. They couldn't send reinforcements – they couldn't even leave the castle. When the champion asked me to leave, they were still at a stalemate..."

Shay chewed his lip. _I should have been there._

"No matter," said Leon. "You did what we needed you to do. I'm just glad you're back in one piece."

"That's not all," he went on. "Shortly after I left... I heard screams, and pokémon attacks behind me. I kept my distance, but I looped back, and I saw guzzlords eating the castle walls."

Shay was dumbfounded. Marlo and Seren wore their astonishment plain on their faces – they had no clue what was going on. The Dormers only looked at each other pensively.

"It didn't look like they could even fight back..." the envoy went on. "I thought I saw someone try to fly away on a tropius, but they brought it down with a big fireball."

The feeling in Shay's hands had gone – he was talking about Rose.

He continued, "They command ultra beasts. I don't know how, but they're doing it, and they have another convoy on its way here now."

"Convoy?" echoed Doctor Dormer with one raised eyebrow.

"They attacked Valiant Undying with an army brought in on black school buses. I spotted at least thirty more of them about fifteen miles west of here. They're coming for us."

Everyone exchanged a nervous look – the invasion was at hand, and it was worse than they thought. "Alright, guys," said Leon, abruptly and uneasily. "I'm going to make those copies, and then we're getting the hell out of here." He began to lead the anxious envoy back up towards the headquarters. "Tell them to activate the air raid sirens. Anyone not on a boat in forty five minutes is getting left behind."

"Wait, what the hell is going on?" asked Seren.

"I'll explain later," replied Doctor Dormer. "You've got less than an hour to get all your shit together. We're evacuating." He turned and began to follow his son up the concrete stairs, and Seren and Marlo exchanged mixed looks of confusion and shock before hustling back towards the headquarters.

The city-wide sirens would send everyone scrambling to their vessels. Valiant Undying had already been attacked, and the Void Talkers would likely attack White Lightning within an hour. Leon seemed to have suspected as much, but it was now confirmed they already controlled ultra beasts. With the portal-opening capabilities of the central gateway hub, they could apparently summon innumerable legions. Despite his uncertainty, Shay felt a strange empowerment. His travels had brought him to all corners of the world in the pursuit of greatness in the battle arena, and his struggles had rewarded him with a legendary pokémon, but never before had he felt such weight as this. If the envoy's report was to be believed, he was fighting a genocide. Finding his way to the boat where his own belongings had been stowed, Shay looked back at _To New Horizons_ one last time as he tried to blink away the mists in his eyes.


	18. The Dead City

Penny

The day presumed the orange hints of the late afternoon as they rode the bullet train through forest and field, past wasted houses and ruined plazas. They tracks led them from derelict farmlands into crumbling suburbs of tranquil communities, with collapsing picket fences and grossly overgrown lawns. Night was falling as the slate gray silhouettes of the tallest Imperia highrises began to appear on the cloudless northern horizon, and the comfortable spread of suburbia gradually gave way to compacted city streets of squat brick buildings splattered with graffiti.

The buildings grew closer as the world grew darker. The stars appeared, and then vanished behind a veil of stone as the train plunged underground. They were approaching an urban station when the sensor detected another train stopped ahead at the platform, and automatically engaged the breaks. "We're better off on foot at this point anyway," said Zed with a shrug as he opened the front car doors, and hopped out onto the pitch black tracks below. She followed Zed along the rails to the platform, climbed a ladder at its edge into the station, and then made their way to the turnstiles above.

The city was an ominous scene, silent but for the nighttime wind, and strangely peaceful. There was no light but the moon and stars above, and the glassy skyscrapers stood dark and monolithic around them, like the tombstones of some long-forgotten gods. It had often been said that the largest cities experienced the worst of The Collapse, as Penny could plainly see from the destruction before her. The streets of were cluttered with debris, abandoned vehicles, felled poles and trees, and random ruptures of earth and pavement, highlighted by a webwork of weeds that pushed through the concrete. Signs of past battles were everywhere, where trainers desperately fought against legions of ultra beasts as they appeared from thin air.

Zed led Penny into an alley that cut between two highrise buildings. Emerging at the other side, they found themselves faced with an oddly empty stretch of highway. He shushed her as he pointed towards a guzzlord down the road, sleeping soundly in front of a half-eaten minivan. They sprinted into the street, and followed it away from the alien beast. It was likely no match for Zed, but he avoided trouble wherever possible. They followed the highway deeper into the city, for what must have been miles. A gust of wind pushed Penny's copper-colored hair, and Zed began to look around curiously. "Come on!" he said in a hushed voice, pulling Penny by the forearm back to the curb, into another alley, and behind a dumpster. Car engines were approaching. Peeking from inside, they watched with pounding hearts as a black hummer and two black school buses weaved their way through the congested roads, headlights shining ahead. Penny wondered if it was one of the same hummers she had seen at the bridge – one that might have Jaden tied up in the trunk, if he was even still alive.

"Shit," said Zed, under his breath. Penny only looked at him with uncertainty. Her confidence was dependent on his, and most of his had been thrown into the Alachia River along with his dad's satellite phone. He pulled away from the dumpster, and continued down the sidewalk. "They're already here," he said with a growl. Their pace slowed after a few blocks at the sound of distant shouts. They made a turn at an intersection, and found several black vehicles parked haphazardly along a reasonably unobstructed stretch of road. Some fifteen or so black-cloaks were shouting, screaming, commanding various pokémon against a small swarm of buzzwhole in a violent dance of punches, kicks, fire, ice, and lightning. Zed and Penny quickly turned back, and took another turn, towards the east. "We'll never get there like this," he said, frustration plain in his voice. "We need another route."

Weaving their way through narrow, graffiti-covered passages, he led her to the water. "The gateway hub is right by the waterfront," he explained. "We're less likely to be seen on a boat, if we can find one." Concrete piers jutted intermittently into the white-capped waves, where freighter ships had once docked to unload their haul. Much to their relief, a little aluminum boat caught their attention. It was an austere little vessel that could not have been more than twelve feet long, with a simple electric motor. They found the activation protected by a six-digit passcode, which Zed easily bypassed with the help of Zeroday. The battery indicator displayed a charge at nineteen percent capacity, but the odd-eyed boy insisted that would be plenty – probably.

With an abrupt electrical hum, they pulled away from the city and into the waves. The little boat jumped through the water as it slapped against the chop waves and battered them with salty splashes. Penny's heart raced as she clung desperately to the edges of the swaying aluminum vessel, fearing with each rising wave that they might capsize. She had no idea how far they had traveled when Zed announced that he could see the gateway hub. Some fifteen or so stories tall, it had obviously been built for strength and not beauty. The building was concrete, practically featureless, with the exception of "AetherCorp" displayed proudly in fat, reflective bronze letters on the top corner of the front wall. It was surrounded on all sides by no fewer than twenty black school buses, and guarded by a small army of black-cloaks. Headlights spilled their glare in all directions.

Zed clicked his tongue. His odd-colored eyes telegraphed his frustration. He had not been expecting this – he was not prepared for this. Penny wanted desperately to hear him say that he had a plan, but his face alone confirmed otherwise.

Zed began nervously stroking his long black hair. He was starting to look how he did at the bridge, when he realized that his father's plans had been uncovered. Penny chewed her lip in uncertainty – if he did not know what to do, then they were totally lost. "It's over," he said in defeat. "There's no way I'm getting in there."

"This wasn't supposed to happen. The only way this was going to work is if I got here before they figured us out, but they've figured us out and now we're fucked." He growled, "Oh, dad, what did you do? You got yourself caught and you fucked it all up, and now we're fucked!"

More black buses were approaching from the surrounding streets to add to the defensive stockade. Penny's heart sank in her chest as she realized the hopelessness of the situation. She wanted to cry. Her eyes wandered over to the ocean beyond. White-capped waves glinting in the moonlight... and something on the horizon? She stood up as best as she could in the swaying aluminum vessel. Boats were approaching from the east. But the Void Talkers had come from the Navajo region, which was west. Puzzled, Penny turned back to Zed. "Hey," she said, gingerly. "Do you know anything about Void Talkers in the Ontaukett region?"

"I don't know," he replied, growing flustered. "I know they planned on attacking a faction called White Lightning in that region soon. But now that they know about my dad's plot to have me disable the gateway hubs, they may have accelerated their schedule. The Void Talkers always had a special interest in them."

"How would they get to Ontaukett? By boat?"

"What? No – they're based in Navajo, and that's mostly desert. They don't have boats, they use old buses and vans and shit. Why does it matter?"

"Look!" she said, pointing to the approaching boats on the horizon. They seemed to be more numerous as they advanced. Maybe thirty – maybe more.

"What the hell?" he said under his breath, joining her.

"AetherCorp had hubs like this all over the world, right?"

"Yeah, but that one down the street can control all of them."

"So then that means they had scientists all over the world. Like, ones that could be in other factions? Ones who know what the Void Talkers are doing, and who want to stop them?"

His face turned pensive. "That would be too good to be true."

"Well, what do we have to lose?" she asked.

"Our lives," he replied, grimly.

Something seemed to take flight out on the water. The darkness shrouded its form but some winged thing was approaching in the sky. "Do you see that?" said Penny.

Zed squinted. His hearing was better than Penny's, but the sane was apparently untrue for his eyesight. "Yeah. That's a pokémon."

"A scout?" She could identify no other explanation. Her own faction had done the same in the past.

"Possibly."

"If they want to scout, then they probably don't even know the Void Talkers are here. They can't be on their side."

Zed paused for a moment as he silently weighed the situation. The winged scout was growing closer, and Penny began to worry that the Void Talkers would notice approaching. They seemed to pay no attention to the water, but after all she had seen, she knew better than to place anything beyond their capabilities. "Penny, call out one of your fire pokémon!" Without a thought, she released Cinnamon from his poké ball, cradling the cyndaquil in her arms as he materialized. "Make him flick his flames on and off repeatedly," Zed went on. "We need to get that scout's attention."

Penny stammered for a moment – she had no clue how she could get him to understand a command like that.

"Just do it!" barked Zed.

"Cinnamon, ember!" she commanded in a panic, pointing towards the approaching scout. The echidna pokémon spit forth a flurry of cinders and sparks, illuminating the boat in a flickering, orange light. The flames tapered out, and darkness resumed. "Ember!" she repeated as the little cyndaquil spewed another weak burst of fire. Zed and Penny watched the sky anxiously. They could only pray that the scout would notice their signal before the Void Talkers did. Cinnamon was growing tired. After five or six consecutive commands, he was straining himself to produce more flame. The flying pokémon slowed its approach as it came into view. Penny's jaw dropped in awe at the sight of the salamence. She returned Cinnamon to his capsule, and the dragon pokémon gently lowered itself to the boat's side, revealing a young man about Jaden's age with blue eyes and shoulder-length brown hair, riding on its back. He gave them a curious look.

"What's your faction?" asked Zed, a bit obnoxiously.

"Uh... White Lightning," replied the dragon rider. "Who are you?"

"I'm Zed Albarn. What are you doing here?"

He paused for a moment, tilting his head, "I don't really know, they just told me to check out the coast to see if it was safe. What are you doing here?" He was strangely calm, and Penny could not help but to wonder whether this man was confident, or just clueless.

"Who's they?" asked Penny.

"My faction," he replied, flatly, as if it should have been obvious.

"Who is your leader?" Zed asked bluntly.

"I don't know, I think Dormer is one of them."

Zed's face lit up, "Dormer? Doctor Leon Dormer?"

"Uh, well there's Leon Dormer, and then there's the older guy. We just call him Dormer."

"That's him – that's got to be him! Take me to him!"

The young man looked uncertain. "Wait, wait, wait. Who even are you?"

"I told you, I'm Zed Albarn! I know Doctor Dormer, and he knows me!"

The salamence trainer did not seem to know what to make of the situation. He looked at Zed, and then Penny, and then Zed again – just two teenaged kids on a boat in the middle of the night after the end of the world. Finally, he relented. "Alright, you can follow me." Penny was awash with relief.

"We stole this thing. The battery is almost dead."

He sighed in annoyance and directed his dragon closer to the boat. The salamence huffed and shook its head as Zed climbed onto its back behind the scout. "Sorry, Draco," he said reluctantly to his pokémon. He lent Penny a hand, and winked at her as he pulled her up. They bunched together tightly on the dragon's back, Zed behind the scout, and Penny in front of him.

"Thank you so much," she said, trying to be polite. "I'm Penny."

"Seren."


	19. Old Friends

Marlo

The passengers looked anxiously from the bow towards the dark city shoreline, and the flickering little orange glow that had appeared on the water just as soon as their scout took flight. With the fleet bereft of light, they had figured themselves hidden by cover of night, but obviously something had noticed them. Marlo, the curly-haired Dormers, and solemn-faced Shay exchanged glances of uncertainty and confusion as they watched the light go out for what seemed to be the last time, and the winged silhouette of Seren and his salamence lowered to the surface of the water. _Lord of Thunder_ was a big, white, beautiful boat with a spacious lower cabin, and it was Leon Dormer's favorite thing in the world. Naturally, it led the makeshift White Lightning fleet at the forefront.

Marlo would have been honored to be invited aboard, if she had not been so nervous about the very sudden and mostly unexplained expedition. She had thought her mission over, but instead she returned to headquarters to learn of an invasion by a hostile faction. White Lightning had endured conflicts in the past, but never before had they encountered a threat so serious as to justify evacuation. No one seemed to know anything about the mysterious Void Talkers except for the Dormers, and they were not sharing much information. Having been told to pack anything of importance, Marlo could only assume that she would not see Benford again. The leaders were willing to forfeit that their foes needed, or wanted, something in Imperia City, and that it was in the best interest of the faction to stop them. The wormhole generator haunted her. Whatever they were looking for, it was related to ultra space – of that, Marlo was certain. She wondered about Shay, though she knew better than to ask. He had been a member of the Alachia Elite Four, and something about his mood was vexing. She had no idea why he had suddenly joined their side, but her gut could only guess that something terrible had happened. She held a strand of platinum-white hair with both hands, stroking it nervously and repeatedly.

"A trap?" asked Leon Dormer, to no one in particular. Seren would be one to blunder right into something like that.

"No, look," replied Doctor Dormer, as the winged shade rose to the air once more, and began flying back towards the fleet. He had found something of interest, obviously.

The salamence's tail hit the water with a gentle splash as he leveled himself at the ship's bow, with three people on his back. He turned to his side, and Seren stepped off, flanked by two teenaged kids with tired, desperate faces. One of them was androgynous, but Marlo was sure he was a boy, olive-skinned with a long, black ponytail reaching to his waist, and mismatched eyes of blue and green. The other was a pale, shy-looking, blue-eyed ginger girl.

Doctor Dormer was puzzled, "Seren, what the hell?"

"They said they knew you," he countered.

"Well did you see anything at least? Did you even get a look at the control hub?"

"The Void Talkers have the place completely surrounded," answered the black-haired boy, flatly. "Hundreds of them, at least."

Doctor Dormer cursed, almost under his breath, as Leon, Shay, and Marlo exchanged uneasy looks.

"Wait, who are you?" asked Doctor Dormer.

"I'm Zed Albarn. Are you Doctor Dormer?" he asked, a bit frantically.

"Yeah, I am," he sounded less than certain.

"Listen to me, I know you don't who I am, but I kind of know who you are – and you need me."

Leon laughed, "And how do you figure that?" Doctor Dormer only stroked his fuzzy chin, pensively.

"My dad used to work for AetherCorp – just like you – and he's been secretly working against the Void Talkers so they can't get access to the network."

"Was your father Bruce Albarn?" asked the doctor.

Zed's face lit up, "Yes!"

"I _do_ know you. Well, I knew your dad, at least. I remember hearing that he had had a son. You would have been a baby then."

He went on, "Listen, my dad wrote a virus, and he sent me here to shut down the gateway network – you're all walking into a slaughter." He swung his black backpack from over his shoulder and began unzipping one of the pockets. _A slaughter?_ Marlo felt her heart sink. _Who did we come here to fight?_

"Wait a minute," interrupted Shay. "How is it that all of us are walking into a slaughter if you planned to get inside there and do your thing with just the two of you?"

"It wasn't supposed to be like this. They're only here because my dad fucked up and got himself caught. But that's not even the problem – you're not prepared to fight them." He retrieved a peculiar device from his bag, resembling a grocery store barcode scanner. "You don't stand a chance against the Void Talkers unless you patch your poké balls."

Shay raised an eyebrow, "Patch? What are you talking about?"

"They use poké ball jammers that send out a continuous signal that tricks them into thinking that it's not safe to let the pokémon out, like as if it was stuck in a confined space, or underwater or something. But I can modify the firmware with this thing, and make them immune."

"They can do that?" asked Leon in disbelief. Marlo felt the heat drain from her body. Everything this boy Zed had to say only made the Void Talkers sound more dangerous than she could imagine. _Hundreds of them._ Doctor Dormer was chewing his lip in uncertainty.

"And why should we trust you to fuck with our poké balls' software?" asked Shay.

"He's not lying," said the redheaded girl, finally. "When they attacked my faction, we couldn't fight back. All of our capsules were disabled."

The doctor spoke up again, a poké ball in hand, "Here, do mine." Zed waved the widget over it with a few beeps. Doctor Dormer opened the capsule, and his lapras materialized in the water with a splash. "Alright, I'll trust him. And I'm in charge here, so that means we all trust him." Shay rolled his eyes as the doctor climbed over the side of the boat, and dropped down onto his pokémon. "Come on," he called up. "We've got a lot of capsules to patch." With his strange widget in hand, the odd-eyed boy hopped the guardrail to join the curly-haired scientists on the back of his lapras to patch any and every poké ball they could find. Marlo looked back to the dark coastline, scanning the blocky silhouettes of the buildings for movement, or anything at all. They were safe, she supposed, as long as they remained unseen. Ten thousand questions raced through her head. She had been in the dark for so long, but the more the learned, the less she wished she knew. Seren returned his salamence to his capsule as he muttered something about being "too tired for this shit," and then disappeared into the cabin. The ginger girl was sitting nervously on the floor of the boat, leaning up against the edge with her arms wrapped around her knees, her hands hidden in the long sleeves of her white pullover hoodie.

"Hey," she said, easing herself down beside her. "I'm Marlo. What's your name?"

"Penny."

"How old are you, Penny?"

"Sixteen."

"Oh, cool. I'm not the youngest anymore," she said, trying to be funny. "I'm nineteen. You seem to know a lot about the situation."

"I really don't."

"Well, you seem to know more than I do."

"Only as much as Zed's told me."

"Why are the Void Talkers here? I've heard that there's something valuable in Imperia City, but that's it."

"Some company called AetherCorp had a bunch of wormhole generators placed throughout the whole planet, and they can all be controlled from here. According to Zed, they'll be able to use them to create portal storms all over again."

Marlo's face bloomed in disbelief. "You mean like The Collapse?"

Shay stepped over, his interest apparently having been piqued.

Penny continued, "Sort of. The Collapse was an accident, supposedly. But apparently they can use the central hub here to open portals wherever they want, and summon armies of beasts, and make them disappear whenever they want."

Marlo stood up, "Leon, did you know about all this?"

"Some of it, yeah," he replied, awkwardly.

A man somewhere in the fleet behind them shouted something defiant, earning an even louder response from Doctor Dormer that Marlo swore would be heard from the shore, "Because I fucking said so!"

Marlo went on, "Why didn't you tell anyone?"

"Why would we? Telling the civvies that an enemy faction is coming right for us would only beget hysteria. Ignorance is bliss."

She hated it, but she knew he was right. "You could have told me at least."

"Look, I don't make a hundred percent of the decisions around here, young lady. I thought the fighters at least deserved to know everything. I mean, if you're going to put your life on the line, you should know what you're fighting for. But of course, Doctor Knox did not agree."

Penny looked up, puzzled, "Doctor Knox? Like, Cassius Knox?"

The sketch of the green, serpentine pokémon flashed into Marlo's head. She had just named the man who wrote _Worlds beyond Ultra Space._

"Cassius was her husband, once upon a time," replied Leon.

Marlo had wondered if there was any relation between the Knox she had read about and the Knox who worked in her faction, but she never would have guessed that they were married to each other.

"Wait, you know him?" asked Penny. "Zed said he's the leader of the Void Talkers."

Her heart stopped for a moment, and the words echoed in her mind, _"We will live in worlds beyond imagination, and talk through the void as if it is no object."_ Leon's face plainly told that he had said too much. Marlo was dumbfounded. How could the man whose writing she had admired so fondly have become their enemy? Cassius wrote of fantastic worlds and theoretical societies with such imagination and wonder as she had never seen, and yet there he stood, atop the greatest living evil in the world, commanding armies and invading peaceful factions. It was often said that The Collapse turned men into beasts, and evidently, even the most educated, most enlightened men were not immune to its corrupting effects. All eyes were on Leon as he chewed his lip uncomfortably, his eyes professing his guilt.

"He's the one," declared Shay. "You thought he was dead, but then you realized he wasn't when you recognized his handwriting on that message."

Leon made an awkward face that could only have meant that Shay was right. "What can I say? My dad and Doctor Knox worked with this guy a long time ago, and then The Collapse happened. We all thought he was dead for years. Look, I'm not a physicist. I can't tell you about portals or wormholes, but I can tell you that when Doctor Knox and my dad read that letter, they were horrified. They don't like what Cassius is doing any more than you do. The fact that they used to work together only means that they know how to beat him. Otherwise, we wouldn't be here trying to stop these people."

The boat fell to silence as Shay, Penny, and Marlo stared pensively at their feet. Everyone turned at the sound of soft splashing to see Doctor Dormer returning to _Lord of Thunder_ on the back of his lapras, alongside Zed. He returned his pokémon to its capsule, and rejoined them at the bow with the long-haired boy following behind him, still holding his patching device. The doctor made a gesture and nodded towards Shay, and Zed stepped forward. With a reluctant face, Shay handed him six poké balls, one by one, as he modified their firmware. When he was done, Doctor Dormer looked at Marlo, and without a word, she began detaching her capsules from her belt so he could do the same. "Where the fuck is Seren?" asked the doctor, annoyed. Marlo sheepishly pointed to the cabin, and he shook his head and scoffed. "Seren! Get the fuck out here now!" Zed was handing her back her last poke ball as dead-eyed Seren sauntered back out to the deck, rubbing his eyes.

"Here's what's going to happen," said the doctor, as the odd-eyed boy began patching Seren's capsules. "You've all still got those sticks, right?" He, Leon, Shay, Seren, and Marlo each pulled a flash storage device from their pockets and held it in front of them. "Five of these things. I wanted ten, but there wasn't enough time. That building on the coast controls wormhole generators, and the same faction who attacked us wants to use it to summon armies of ultra beasts wherever they want. The virus I wrote is supposed to force every portal to become outbound, meaning that nothing will be able to get to our world from other worlds, but not the other way around. Mister Albarn here has a better virus – the one his father wrote will brick the whole system, so we won't have any portals at all, ever again. I wanted to do the same thing, but time was not on my side. Zed's virus takes priority. All we have to do is get to the master control room, and plug it in."

A loud horn blared from the very back of the fleet – the attack signal.

"Knox... Always jumping the gun," said Leon as he stepped back into the cabin to pilot the boat. Doctor Dormer followed his son inside as Shay rested his hands on the front guardrail, looking intently towards the Imperia City shoreline.

Zed sat down on the deck next to nervous-faced Penny. "This is going to be so cool," he said, much too confidently. "We have like a whole army now!" She was far from reassured.

Boat engines were starting all around in a series of electrical hums. Marlo's heart raced. She was not ready for this. She could never be ready for something like this. The horn blared once again, and the captains began to pilot their boats into their planned formations as they started towards the coast.


	20. Assault on the Gateway Hub

Shay

A convoy of black-painted school buses were parked in no particular arrangement around the AetherCorp gateway hub building, spilling headlights in random directions. The fleet landed haphazardly among the docks and piers of the waterfront as close to a hundred trainers poured out from the boats, with Shay and Leon leading the vanguard. Dozens of black-cloaks were on them without hesitation. Trainers spread out in all directions as poké balls flew. A Void Talker's arbok materialized first, followed by a weezing, a zangoose, and then a blastoise. Leon responded with his vikavolt, and Shay with his staraptor. Trainers screamed battle commands as the surrounding blocks of the AetherCorp building quickly descended into chaos.

Shay dropped to the ground instinctively as a ball of fire flew at him from the side, bathing him in light and heat as it skated over his head. "Brave bird!" he commanded, pointing at the magmortar that had launched the attack. His staraptor swooped from above, slamming its whole body into his fire-breathing opponent. The magmortar stumbled back from the force of the blow, and then returned with a flamethrower attack at its trainer's command. Ace flapped his wings and rose above the stream of fire. "Close combat!" ordered Shay, as his bird dove downward and battered his foe with relentless strikes of wing, beak, and claw. The magmortar tried to fight back, but could produce no more flames under the ruthless blows from its avian attacker. With a cruel peck to the face, it finally fell. Its black-cloaked trainer shouted wordlessly in frustration as he followed up with an arcanine, commanding another flamethrower without hesitation. Ace flapped his wings in an attempt to escape to the sky, but failed with a painful squawk as he was caught in the fire stream.

"Yubel! Psychic!" ordered Zed from somewhere behind them as his gardevoir sent one of the Void Talkers' black school buses tumbling through the air. It landed on its roof with a deafening crash that turned its windshield to shards, and the arcanine and fallen magmortar disappeared beneath its mass. Shay could only blink, mouth agape, as the girly, long-haired boy rushed past him, with Yubel floating closely behind, enveloped in a purple-pink glow. Ace shivered and ruffled his slate-and-white feathers before taking to the air once again. Shay checked behind the bus for his black-cloaked opponent, finding him pinned beneath it from the waist down. A river of dark blood ran from his exposed, motionless mouth down his cheeks and neck. _These freaks actually wear a uniform?_

"The jammers – they're not working!" shouted a Void Talker down the road. Battles raged in every direction. Another black-cloak was commanding a fearow against a White Lightning trainer's reuiniclus. Leon's vikavolt swerved and dove through the air as it shot bolts of lightning downward at the opposing chesnaught. Marlo's gengar hurled a shadow ball at an espeon, and Seren's salamence bombarded a garbodor with a dragon pulse attack from the sky. Streams of fire and beams of supercooled air flew as bodies collided. Up ahead, Seren was commanding dragon pulses from his salamence against a guzzlord, while Leon and Marlo commanded their vikavolt and gengar against a second one. Shay pressed on.

A black-cloak wearing a white sash across his body jumped out from behind an overturned car, and opened two peculiar black-and-green poké balls. Shay jumped back as he found himself faced with a duo of buzzwholes. He commanded a brave bird attack, and Ace swooped down on one of them, knocking it to the ground. The other reeled back its arm for a strike, and was swept from its feet as a ball of fire exploded at its head. Shay's guts turned to water as he turned to see his sister rushing towards the battle beside her houndoom. "Flamethrower!" she commanded.

The buzzwholes quickly rose back up to the orders of their masked commander. Shay called for a wing attack, and his staraptor bounded on the same insectoid as the other was engulfed in a flurry of fire. Ace's opponent threw reckless swings as the bird swerved and darted through the air in a cycle of striking and retreating. Princess's beast charged through the flames as if they were nothing. It would have grabbed its canine foe by the neck, but was slammed to the ground underneath a huge chunk of concrete – a rock slide attack from a White Lightning trainer's golem. While the bug lay motionless in a splatter of fluorescent yellow-orange blood, the other ultra beast finally fell to Ace's relentless aerial strikes. Princess bared her teeth, and clenched her jaws on the black-cloak's ankle. He fell to the ground, screaming and writhing, as a third black-and-green poké ball rolled from his hand. Shay kicked it away before commanding a close combat attack. The Void Talker raised his hands meekly in front of him as the staraptor bounded on him, scratching and beating viciously with beak and claw. When their pokémon finally backed away, the man's mask had been ripped away, revealing a bloody, mangled face, and a pool of blood growing from the gaping hole in his throat.

Shay gave Clara a stabbing look. "What the fuck are you doing here?"

"I have as much business being here as you do," she sassed back.

Shay bit his lip and swiped a weary hand across his face and head. He had no words to express his frustration.

"It's actually kind of funny," she went on. "I told them I was that gym leader Karina and they actually believed me. No one even asked me about the cast."

Shay wanted to slap her. He wanted to lift her up by her waist and throw her right back onto whatever boat she lied her way onto. But there was no time to argue. Pokémon were brawling everywhere in sight, and some of the black-cloaks were commanding ultra beasts. Shay sighed in defeat. "Come on," he said, reluctantly. "Just stay by me." He returned his exhausted staraptor to his capsule, and led his sister onward.

They reached another intersection along with three other White Lightning trainers, commanding a floatzel, a venusaur, and a roserade. A strange feeling washed through Shay's guts. A few black-cloaks stood their ground against the attackers, but most of the Void Talkers' forces seemed to be focusing on guarding the AetherCorp building. Without the use of their poké ball jammers, were they really so weak? Their forces had presumably been divided in order to attack other factions simultaneously, but perhaps they had come to rely too closely on their tricks. Four more black-cloaks appeared from the left, commanding a seviper, a swalot, an eelektross, and a simisear. Shay responded with his gliscor, commanding a fissure attack without hesitation. The scorpion pokémon clicked and jabbed its claws through the pavement, sending a wave of rupturing earth towards the new challengers. Fire and electricity flew against blasts of water and leafy, razor-sharp projectiles, until the very ground beneath their opponents exploded around them, plunging them into a shallow chasm. The Void Talkers were a river of black, swarming around the AetherCorp building. Capsules continued to fly in a cacophony of battle commands, as pokémon brawled throughout the streets.

With Clara following closely behind, Shay pressed forth. There was one entrance to the building, surrounded by a small army of Void Talkers and ultra beasts. Leon sprinted to Shay's side with a beaming grin, followed by Zed, and that shy little red-haired girl from the boat, looking even paler and more timid than usual. "The worst thing about The Collapse," he said, chuckling to himself. "Is that we never got to have our rematch. This is why we're called White Lightning." With that, he detached a master ball from his belt, and Shay's eyes bloomed with surprise as a thundurus materialized before him before rising to the sky. He had never been sure that such a pokémon really existed. "Let's give them hell."

Shay returned his gliscor to his capsule. Finally, he called out his zapdos. The majestic bird extended his wings with a squawk that must have rang through all of Imperia City. Clara looked like a child in a toy store as Shay directed her to join him. _The safest place for her here is with me. _She returned Princess to her capsule, and they took to the air. "Blitzkrieg!" commanded Shay as the legendary electric-type pokemon strafed the ground with ruthless lightning, illuminating the whole street in tandem with Leon's thundurus. Black-cloaks screamed and scattered like insects as electricity exploded around them, dispersing them in random directions as they frantically tried to escape the electrical bombardment among fallen bodies of pokémon, ultra beasts, and other black-cloaks.

The lightning gods paused their attacks, and Leon quickly returned his thundurus to its master ball as he led the forces of White Lightning through the consuming madness to the front entrance. Another sashed black-cloak was screaming from the roof of the AetherCorp building, "What are you doing? Stop them! Stop them, you idiots!" He opened another black-and-green capsule, and a celesteela materialized at his side. The metallic beasts lifted itself to the air, pointing its cannons upwards, and scorched the sky with a barrage of flaming projectiles. Zeius swerved left, and right, and down, and left, and left, and right, and up, and down, as Shay and Clara clung to the zapdos's back.

"Thunder!" cried Shay in desperation. The thunderbird squawked as he brought a powerful bolt up from the ground. The celesteela let out a steely shriek as the electricity surged through its body from below, and he quickly directed Zeius to land on the roof. He and his sister quickly leaped from his back, and the zapdos took right back to the air to trade lightning with the ultra beast's flaming projectiles. Two female Void Talkers appeared from the stairwell, one black-haired, and the other blonde.

Clara called out her houndoom. With Zeius preoccupied above, Shay called out his talonflame while the blonde black-cloak responded with a chesnaught, and the brunette with a milotic.

"Flame charge!" ordered Shay as his firebird enveloped his body in fire, and then dove towards the opponent's chesnaught. A sudden blast of water from the milotic sent Princess tumbling across the roof. The houndoom flailed and rolled, and just barely managed to keep herself from the ledge.

"Kill them! Kill them both!" shouted the beast-weilder to the other two black-cloaks, as he watched the skirmish in the sky between the celesteela and the zapdos. Shay trusted his birds – they had all killed beasts before. Zeius did not need a trainer's command to protect himself. His talonflame pecked and thrashed at the chesnaught, body engulfed in flames, until another blast of water from the milotic sent him swerving and spinning through the air. Princess sprinted back to her trainer's side, spewing forth a blazing stream at Clara's command. The chesnaught groaned and recoiled as it was licked by flames, while Shay's talonflame circled back to the fight. The brunette tore off her mask to reveal a beautiful, furious face, green eyes burning with rage. She ordered a hydro pump attack from her milotic, this time pointing at Clara. Shay looked at his sister in horror as the serpent spewed forth a geyser of water that swept her from her feet, across the roof, and over the edge. He heard her scream for a brief moment, right before she must have hit the ground. Princess reeled and yelped from the blast, but managed to stay on all fours. There was a clap of thunder as Zeius squawked above, and the celesteela dropped from the sky, bounced from a taller building, and then crashed to the ground in a defeated slump. The sashed black-cloak's exposed mouth telegraphed his compunction - now nothing stood between him and Shay's zapdos.

"Zeius!" he shouted, blind with rage. "Blitzkrieg!"

Electricity rained from above once more, bathing the roof of the AetherCorp building in flashing light. The officer was the first to fall, followed by the milotic. Realizing that they were far outmatched, the two remaining black-cloaks returned their pokémon to their capsules, and fled. The lightning stopped, and Shay sprinted forth. He caught the blonde one by the back of her cloak as the brunette escaped into the stairwell behind her officer. He yanked as hard as he could, toppling her over to her back. She cried out as he delivered a hard kick to her ribs, and then another, and another. Shay knelt down over her, and ripped the mask away. She had blue eyes, and she was terrified. He wrapped his arms around her as tightly as he could as tears welled in his eyes.

"Please!" she pleaded, struggling to free herself from his grasp as he dragged her towards the ledge. "I was only following orders!"

Shay would not relent.

"Please! No! I never wanted to hurt anyone." She kicked and squirmed to no avail.

He would not look down, for fear of seeing Clara's broken body. With the full force and weight of his body, he shoved the black-cloaked woman over the edge of the roof sending her screaming to her death. Shay sat down cross-legged with his back to the ledge. With his talonflame perched at his side, and his sister's houndoom whining curiously at his feet, he sat down cross-legged, and began to cry.


	21. Eye for an Eye

Jaden

The floor trembled beneath him, as thunder clapped ruthlessly outside. The fighting had been going on for at least thirty minutes, by his estimation. Maybe more. Starving and handcuffed to a radiator in a dreary, windowless room that must have once been an office, Jaden had lost all track of time since they brought him to the AetherCorp building. He knew that he was somewhere on the fourth level, and no more. Day and night had become a mystery. Carter had managed to convince the Void Talkers to let him live, at least until they were sure that he had no value as a hostage. Lilith, unsurprisingly, offered nothing to the defense of his longevity. He had been allowed to keep his poké balls under the assumption that the jammers would prevent them from working, but even with the immunity granted by Zed's firmware patch, he had not the faintest hope of fighting his way out. He loathed the thought, but Carter was obviously too interested in protecting himself to betray his new masters by offering any real help. Jaden would die before he ever saw Penny's face again – he had no doubts about that.

From what Jaden had overheard, the Void Talkers divided their forces into three groups: one to attack Valiant Undying; another to attack White Lightning and some other, weaker factions in the Ontaukett region to the east; and a third to protect the central gateway hub. Zed had said that they could use this place to summon whole legions of ultra beasts, but apparently they needed some access code or key, to which only their leader had access. Cassius Knox's arrival was expected "shortly," but someone else had obviously beaten him here. Jaden could only begin to guess at who they were, but he supposed that he would find out soon enough, after he was sure that some of them had breached the building. The Void Talkers were scrambling to fight back – they were prepared to stop a few rogue infiltrators, but not an invading army.

Suddenly, the door opened. A black-cloak stepped in, and slammed it shut behind him. He yanked off his mask, and Jaden was relieved to see Carter's face behind it. His eyes were sunken and bagged, and his beard had grown unkempt. "Alright, I don't know what the fuck is going on," he said, exasperated. "I'm not going to die for these fucking freaks. Whoever these new people are – I'm telling them that we had nothing to do with the Void Talkers."

"So you're not one of _them_ anymore?" asked Jaden, accusingly.

Carter gave him a weary look as he began to remove his cloak. "Remember Eve?"

"Yeah."

"Yeah, she tried to run away. They caught her, and they burned her alive in front of everyone as an example of what happens to anyone who doesn't do what they say. That's why I went along with all this stupid shit."

"And Lilith?"

"Lilith's crazy, Jay. We've always known that." Carter replied before he suddenly recoiled, as something exploded somewhere else in the building. The fight would find them soon. "Listen," he continued, back in his regular clothes. "Your poké balls aren't going to work."

"Don't worry about that." With a smirk, Jaden detached a capsule from his belt, and called out his grovyle, Koko. The gecko pokémon looked around the room curiously. Carter's face bloomed in bewilderment as he called out his scizor. With a few simple snips of Mantis's pincers, the handcuffs fell away, broken to pieces. Lending him a hand, Carter pulled him to his feet. Jaden had not eaten since the drawbridge, and as he rose, he realized his fatigue. "So what's the plan?"

Carter chewed his lip uncomfortably. He had not a clue what do to next. "Do you think the Albarn kid has anything to do with this?"

"No," he replied without hesitation. "There's no way."

"Well, the enemy of our enemy is our friend... right?"

They exchanged an awkward look. People were shouting further down the hall, commanding pokémon. The battle was spreading throughout the building.

"What exactly did that kid want to come here for?" asked Carter. "I don't even understand what any of this shit is."

"Zed said there's a network of places like this throughout the world that can open portals in ultra space, except this one can control the others. The Void Talkers want to use it to summon armies of ultra beasts wherever they want, but he said he has a virus that can brick the whole system, so that no one can use it ever again, here or anywhere else."

Carter shook his head despondently. "Fucking hell... The officers talked about 'extending their reach to the void,' and weird shit like that, but I didn't know anything about summoning armies. I always liked to think all the beasts would die off eventually... But the Void Talkers, they gave us photos of this kid's face, and his height and weight and everything – they really want him dead. Whatever they figured he was going to do to disable their system, they must have expected it to work. Maybe these people wrote a virus of their own?"

Carter had a point. Jaden failed to imagine anything else that might motivate so many people to attack the Void Talkers here. Zed only knew so much because his own father had been an AetherCorp researcher, and spent years secretly working against the Void Talkers from right under their nose. It stood to reason that other survivors knew, too. The door swung open as a scrafty burst through, pursued by a toxicroak. They traded blows with each other as their trainers rushed in after them, screaming commands. The scrafty's owner was a black-cloak, while the opponent wore plain clothes.

"Leaf blade!" ordered Jaden, before Koko lurched forward and swung the leafy, razor-edged appendage of her arm at the scrafty. Carter promptly followed with a bullet punch command, and the toxicroak's trainer shouted for a poison jab. Their combined attacks quickly overwhelmed their black-cloaked foe. He returned his pokémon to its capsule, and before he could call out another, the poison frog was upon him, tearing and slashing as he screamed. The plain-clothes trainer called off the attack as it became clear that his opponent was dead. Before Jaden could think to ask him anything, he and his partner rushed back into the hallway. The man shouted and recoiled for a brief moment before he and his toxicroak were suddenly flattened beneath the weight of an enemy golem's rollout. Jaden winced as their bodies exploded into a gruesome spray of blood and viscera.

"So much for him," said Carter, facetiously.

"He didn't think we were enemies, though," replied Jaden. "If they're all wearing regular clothes, we should be able to blend right in."

Carter nodded in agreement. "I heard the officers say that the control console or whatever is on the bottom level. If they want to do anything, they'll go there."

"Then that's where we'll go."

After peeking outside the door for anything big and round, Jaden and Carter stepped gingerly around the pulverized bodies of the trainer and his toxicroak as they made their way into the hall, followed by Koko and Mantis.

"This building is like a maze," Carter explained. "It's built with choke points. AetherCorp apparently expected people to want to break in here."

"Choke points?" echoed Jaden. "What do you mean?"

"The stairs are all weird – none of them cover the whole height of the building. You can't get to the basement levels from the ground floor. There's a specific elevator that'll take you there."

"Okay, so which floor is it on?"

"I don't know," he replied, flatly.

Jaden rolled his eyes. "Well, they're all coming in at ground level anyway, right?"

"I'm not so sure – Torman went up to the roof boasting about how his celesteela has never lost a battle, so something must be going on up there."

"Either way, I think we should find some allies before anymore Void Talkers find us." They reached a stairwell at the end of the hall, and followed it down to the third floor. Peeking through the little window on the door, Jaden saw only chaos. A slaking and a buzzwhole wrestled each other while a reuniclus hurled hunks of psychic energy left and right, and a pheromosa traded kicks with a hitmonlee. A wall of bright, orange flame flew in from somewhere unseen, blocking his view. Walking into this, they were sure to be battered. He looked at Carter, and without a word, they agreed to go further down.

The door to the second floor hallway had been blown from its hinges. A white-sashed black-cloaked man stood under the remaining arch, commanding a nihilego, while another shouted orders to a naganadel further down. They fought in a team against a rotom and a gengar at the command of two plain-clothes trainers – a man and woman whose faces told that they had bitten off more than they could chew. The floating jellyfish threw its crystalline body left and right, strafing the hall with blasts of strange, otherworldly energy, while the insectoid alien darted wildly through the air, thrusting its deadly stinger. The rotom fought back with bolts of lightning, and the gengar hurled phantasmal projectiles in all directions.

"Guillotine!" ordered Carter without a moment's hesitation, and in a heartbeat, Mantis's pincers were around the man's throat. Jaden flinched as blood sprayed. Without a sound, the black-cloak's head rolled from his shoulders, while his body fell limp to the ground. Rushing through the doorway, they shouted battle commands as their pokémon entered the fray. The nihilego, which hardly seemed to notice its fallen trainer, found itself quickly overwhelmed between Jaden's grovyle, Carter's scizor, and the girl's gengar. A sudden thrust of a tentacle found its way into Koko's belly, while the man's rotom faltered under ruthless attacks from the opposing naganadel. With speed that defied the human eye, the ultra beast launched itself towards the plasma pokémon's trainer, and thrust its stinger through his chest. He collapsed to his knees, wailing in agony as the insectoid creature pulled away, and blood gushed from the fist-sized hole it left in him.

"Seren!" the girl screamed in horror.

The jellyfish finally fell to one of Mantis's bullet punches, and the three standing trainers set their focus on the remaining ultra beast. Jaden ordered a leaf blade attack, but his grovyle suddenly buckled from the nihilego's poison. He returned Koko to her capsule and switched into his conkeldurr, Chief. The naganadel seemed to hold its own against its earthly opponents, darting and swerving through the air, and dodging attacks as quickly as it returned them. Another masked officer appeared from around a corner, sneering menacingly and holding a black-and-green poké ball that certainly contained another beast. His smirk disappeared as a door suddenly swung open behind him.

"Sick him!" shouted a tall, curly-haired man, as his luxray rushed in and pounced the new black-cloak. He shouted and pushed at the big cat's face, but he could to nothing to stop its teeth from finding his throat as the capsule rolled uselessly from his hand. Its jaws closed, and he was silenced. The trainer pointed to the remaining ultra beast. "Thunder!" After a fatal blast of electricity that blew out every light in the hallway, the naganadel was finally defeated. The last remaining black-cloak tried raised his hands in surrender, but their mercy had long since expired. He backed against the wall helplessly as the electric cat pokémon bounded on him, and tore out his throat.

The girl rushed to the fallen rotom trainer's bloody body and knelt beside him. His eyes were wide open, looking at nothing. She detached a capsule from his belt and recalled his defeated rotom for him as she swung her backpack from her shoulders.

"Come on, Marlo, we've got to keep moving!" said the curly-haired man, anxiously. "I'm sorry, but there's no time to mourn!"

"Give me just a fucking second, Leon!" she snapped back as she detached the remaining poké balls and tossed them in her bag. Her voice was breaking with emotion. Leon rolled his eyes as she lifted herself back to her feet. Wordlessly, he and his luxray bolted down the hall, and into another stairwell. Without a thought, Jaden was running alongside Carter and Marlo and all their pokémon, trying to keep up with him. He had no clue who this man was, but he seemed to know what he was doing, and that was enough for him.

They followed Leon to the fifth level hallway. Battles raged among the bloody, battered bodies of trainers from both sides, and their beaten pokémon, and a few fallen ultra beasts. Two more black-cloaks confronted them, leading a starmie, a donphan, and a dark-type raticate. Leon growled in frustration, "Don't stop! We don't have time! Discharge!" With a wide wave of crackling lightning from his luxray, the starfish and the rat went down, and he was running back down the hall with Marlo tailing just behind him. The donphan charged for Chief, halting as the conkeldurr grabbed hold of its tusks. While the two pokémon grappled with each other, one of the Void Talkers recalled the fallen starmie and raticate, and switched into a ninetales, and commanded for a flamethrower. Carter tried to respond, but Mantis faltered easily under the blazing stream. He encapsulated his scizor, and called out his bisharp, Knight. Chief struggled and resisted, still holding onto the donphan's tusks while the elephant pushed and thrashed against him.

"Flamethrower!" ordered the black-cloak again.

"Sucker punch!" replied Carter.

Before the fox could manage another fire attack, the bisharp was upon it with a cruel swipe of his arm-blade. The ninetales went down, and at Carter's command, Knight opened its trainer's throat with a savage night slash. As Jaden's conkeldurr continued to wrestle with the opponent's donphan, he checked down the hall to find that Leon and Marlo were gone. He clicked his tongue in frustration. Finally, Chief managed to overwhelm his opponent, flipping the donphan over onto its back, leaving it kicking and flailing helplessly. Following a dynamic punch and an iron head to the belly, the elephant was defeated. With another order, the donphan's trainer fell to a brutal hammer arm to the head.

Carter quickly turned to catch up with the others. Jaden meant to follow him, but he paused as he suddenly heard someone eerily familiar. He looked around, trying to trace the source.

"Jay, what are you doing?" asked Carter.

He heard it again, and without a word, he took off. The words were unintelligible, but there was no doubt: it was Penny's voice. She was on this floor. He sprinted through the corridors, his conkeldurr hustling just behind. Jaden turned a corner, and Carter was running after him, shouting his name. He did not look back – there was no time. He had seen more bodies in the last hour than he could count, and he could not let her become one of them.

"No! Please don't!" shouted her voice.

Jaden's heart raced. He leaped over the body of a dead buzzwhole, and turned a corner. Penny was on her back just before the gaping doorway to another stairwell, her flareon curled into a defeated slump against the wall. Lillith was kneeling over her beside her swampert, Kippy. She was wearing a black cloak, but no mask, and brandishing a knife. "This is for my tooth, you little cunt!"

"Lilith, no!" warned Jaden as Chief caught up with him.

"Who the fuck let you out?" replied Lilith, annoyed.

"Get away from her!"

"Or you'll do what?" She scoffed.

Penny screamed in agony as Lilith drove the knife into her left eye, and twisted it cruelly. When she pulled it out, the entire length of the blade was painted red. Without a thought, Jaden ordered an attack, and his Chief charged forth. Kippy stifled the conkeldurr with a mud bomb, splattering the floor and walls with brown muck, but Chief quickly shook it off and got right to tussling with the amphibian pokémon. Without a moment's hesitation, Lilith was upon him. Jaden tried to grab her arm, but she was too quick. He winced and shouted as the knife found its way into his gut. She pulled out, and stabbed him again. She pulled out again, and grabbed hold of her wrist, and they began to wrestle for the knife. They struggled, and grunted, and strained, and he noticed that she was missing one of her front teeth. Finally, he wrested the blade from her grip. Her green eyes bloomed with fear, but before he could strike back, Carter grabbed him from behind. Chewing her lip, Lilith returned Kippy to his poké ball, and bolted into the stairwell. Knight moved to block the doorway at Carter's command while Jaden tossed and cursed. _Only he would protect her._ He ordered Chief to punch through, but with one sucker punch, his conkeldurr was on the floor. Penny meanwhile lay wailing on the floor, her hands pressed to her face, and blood oozing between her fingers.

"Drop it!" shouted Carter.

"Let go!" he growled as he thrashed in his hold. "You bitch! I'll kill you!"

"Enough, Jay! Drop the knife!"

Chief was battered and exhausted, but he had not been defeated. He rose to his feet and cocked a fist in preparation to strike against the bisharp once again. Jaden thrust his head back, and slammed his skull back into his face. With a loud crack, Carter recoiled, and he was sure that he had broken his nose. Knight stepped forward to strike once more at the hardy conkeldurr, and - finally free - Jaden saw the gap. He rushed through the doorway, leaving Carter collapsed on the ground. Lilith was still climbing up above. By now she had cleared two rotations of stairs. He could not see her, but he could hear her frantic steps, and he was not going to let her get away.

"There you are!" shouted a man somewhere up the stairwell. His voice was strangely familiar. A canine pokémon barked. "You little cunt!"

The man grunted, and Lilith cried out as the dog began to snarl. Jaden continued upward, wincing as his shirt turned dark red from his wound. He reached another landing, and from across the drop, one flight above, he saw Shay, of the Alachia Elite Four, holding her against the guardrail, while a houndoom savaged her ankle. She cried out again as he delivered a punch into her mouth. Jaden was dumbstruck – all his life he had dreamed of facing the Alachia Pokémon League, but even in his wildest fantasies, never would he have envisioned such a legendary trainer punching Lilith in the face. He paused in awe as the flying-type specialist planted a disturbingly passionate kiss on her lips, and cupped her breast. "This is for Clara," he said, menacingly, before he reached to his belt, detached an ultra ball, and called out his signature pokémon. The huge electric bird materialized beside him with its wings folded. Shay shouted an attack command, and the bird thrust its beak straight through Lilith's head. With that, he tossed her lifeless body over the guardrail returned his zapdos to its capsule, and disappeared with his houndoom into the doorway behind him. Jaden nearly collapsed as a wave of pain washed through his belly. Holding the railing, he winced as he made his way back down, blood oozing from his wounds. He needed to get back to Penny. Stepping over Carter, unconscious in the doorway, he found her motionless on the floor, where Lilith had left her, but still breathing. He laid down beside her on the cold tile floor, and cradled her head in his arm. His hands and feet were going numb. He closed his eyes, and left it to fate whether he would ever open them again. If he died here, at least it would be by her side.


	22. Into the Wilds

Zed

Zed exchanged an uneasy look with Yubel as the elevator doors closed behind them. He had no clue what would be waiting for him when they opened again. One thing was certain: success or failure, his mission was almost at an end. It was ironic – for all of White Lightning's efforts, he found himself alone with his pokémon after all. He could not discount them, however. If not for their sacrifices, he would never have reached the AetherCorp building. The elevator was descending, and Zed's breath grew stiff. He reached into his pocket to feel at the flash storage device that he would use to disable the system. According to his father, the Void Talkers meant to conquer societies in other universes. The fate of this world, and the fates of worlds unknown would be decided in the coming moments.

His gardevoir assumed an offensive stance, and Zed instantly knew that he was going to have to fight. The elevator stopped, and he took a deep breath. His heart was racing. The doors opened, and before he could blink, two buzzwholes were upon them. He tried to fall back, but there was nowhere to go. An iron-hard fist slammed into his gut, and the wind flew out of him. The creature reeled back for another blow, and then suddenly Zed was behind them, teleported from harm's way. "Yubel!" he choked, doubled over on the ground. He strained to turn and look. The buzzwholes bounded on his gardevoir. He screamed for a psychic attack, and with a blast of psychokinetic energy, the bugs were slammed to the wall, and then pinned to the ground. They began to pull themselves up, but Yubel teleported to his trainer's side, and shoved them both into the elevator almost effortlessly, just as the doors closed again.

Zed caught his breath, and struggled to his feet, seeing stars. He could not bear to stand up straight. No doubt, at least two of his ribs were broken. Before them lay a hallway with a single door at the end, protected by an electronic number pad. He coughed into his fist, spraying blood onto his hand and wrist. This was the final stretch. The pad flashed green and beeped, and the door swung open to reveal Doctor Cassius Knox, the leader of the Void Talkers, alone in the central console room. He was dressed in a black lab coat with a deep red shirt, black pants and a black tie. His head was hairless and shiny as ever. "Well, well, well," he said, grinning evilly. "If it isn't daddy's little girl."

"Shut up," said Zed, limping forward. "Or I'll make you shut up."

"Even if you could, you're too late. We've already taken care of that little virus your dad wrote."

Zed stopped, "What?"

"You really thought that would solve everything? You really thought we'd never figure out a workaround to something like that?"

"Where's my dad?"

"In a ditch somewhere."

Zed's heart sank. Somehow, he already knew that, but the truth hurt all the same.

Cassius went on, "Call back your pokémon. You've already lost – there's no need to fight. There's something I want to show you."

Zed narrowed his brow suspiciously, "What's that?"

"I won't spoil it. Come on, don't be difficult during your last moments. I just want to show you something."

Zed looked at Yubel. They were both exhausted. Against his better judgment, he returned his gardevoir to his poké ball.

"That's a good boy," taunted Cassius as he waved for him to come inside. Zed followed him in, to find the walls lined by computer consoles. The doctor gestured to a huge screen, divided into dozens of views, each displaying a live video feed from the building. Countless bodies of people and pokémon alike lay dead, sprawled haphazardly throughout twisting hallways and rooms, while some stragglers still traded blows among them.

"Look at all this," said Cassius. "I imagine you're the one who motivated all these people to throw away their lives here. I can't imagine any other way that their poké balls would be functioning. Go on, look at what you've done. Look at what comes of stupidity."

"Your stupidity," replied Zed. "The only reason any of this happened is because of you."

"You blame me for The Collapse?"

"No, I blame you for attacking other factions, and starting this whole stupid thing."

"The world is in shambles. It needs unification. Those who stand in the way of progress must be washed out."

"And your plans to attack other worlds?"

"Even united, our world is but a minnow in an infinite sea of horrors beyond your imagination. But joined with others, we might find safety. Events such as what we call The Collapse can befall any world, at any time. I merely seek to erect a society in which such threats can be mitigated. If conquest is the only way by which I can accomplish this, then so be it."

In a moment of defiance, Zed reached for the flash storage device, and jammed it into the nearest receptacle, wincing from the pain of his body's sudden twist. His dad had written it to launch automatically. He gritted his teeth as he hoped for something – anything to happen. But nothing did, and Cassius began to laugh. "You're not a very good listener," he teased. "Neither was your dad." Zed had never felt so defeated. His father was dead, and his plans were foiled, and he had walked across a continent and led scores of men and women to their deaths, all for nothing. He wanted to cry.

They both turned to look down the hall as they heard the elevator doors open again. Doctor Dormer stepped forth, followed by his son Leon, and then the other Doctor Knox, Cassius's wife.

"What are you doing, Cassius?" she said, as if she were scolding a child.

"Jenna." he said, stepping into the hall to meet them. "So you're still alive."

She unfolded a sheet of paper and held it for him to read. "I know you wrote this. What the hell is wrong with you?"

"Jenna, things have changed. You're a smart woman, certainly you must understand that."

"I don't understand anything about you anymore."

"It's over, Cassius," said Doctor Dormer, solemnly.

"There are four of us down here, and one of you," added Leon, cockily. "One of us is going to disable this system."

"Come with me," said Jenna Knox. "We can get you the help you need."

Cassius pulled back. "No," he said, darkly. "This is greater than you can imagine. This is my magnum opus – humanity will rise again, I will take us to new heights. Why would you oppose me?"

Jenna and the Dormers all exchanged a worried look with each other. Zed's father had always thought him a bit eccentric. Apparently since The Collapse, he had gone completely insane.

"Cassius, this is crazy," said Jenna. "This is not the way."

"It doesn't matter," Cassius continued. "Albarn's kid already tried. We found out about your virus plan, and we prepared a patch. There's nothing you can do."

Doctor Dormer's face was stone. Without a word, he began to walk towards the control room.

"What are you doing, Dormer?" asked Cassius with a scoff, making no effort to stop him.

He offered no answer. A smirk spread across his face as he stepped through the door, and reached the central console.

"Dormer," he said again, sharply. "Whatever you think is going to happen, it won't work."

"You knew about Albarn's virus plan," he finally replied. "But I bet you didn't know about mine." He pulled a flash storage device from the breast pocket of his now tattered lab coat.

Cassius's confidence drained from his face. He made a dash forward, only to be tackled by Leon, who was much taller and much more muscular. "Let go of me you son of a whore!" he shouted, straining. "You don't even know what you're doing!"

"Dorks like you make me so glad I never wanted to study science!" growled Leon, as he wrestled him to the ground.

Jenna Knox stood over them, shaking her head solemnly at what her husband had become since The Collapse. Doctor Dormer found a matching port, and inserted his device. The system chirped in response while the video feeds flickered away to reveal a basic console interface. Seemingly random strings of letters and numbers flashed across the screen as he knelt over and began typing wildly.

"Get off of me!" screamed Cassius as he managed to open a black-and-green poké ball. A black-and-yellow naganadel emerged from the capsule just above them, shrieking in its horrible, alien voice.

Leon rolled away from him, and retorted with a luxray. "Thunder fang!"

Cassius shot back, "X-scissor!"

Jenna Knox retreated back towards the elevator as the two pokémon began to fight. Zed stepped out of the console room, and called out Yubel once more. The building began to hum all around them – that did not seem right. The luxray loosed lightning while his gardevoir hurled hunks of psychic material, but Cassius's naganadel was quite formidable. Darting through the air with insectoid grace, the ultra beast found little difficulty avoiding its opponents' attacks. With a cruel stab of the stinger, Leon's luxray was down. Yubel could barely hold himself up. With the last of his strength, he raised a solid, psychic barrier, but the frenzied naganadel found little challenge in shattering it with the brute force of its body. With an X-scissor attack, Yubel fell, and nothing stood between Cassius and the control room. Zed returned his gardevoir to his capsule, and fumbled for another poké ball as the beast dashed forth at its trainer's command, reeling its deadly stinger for another stab.

"I've got it!" cried Doctor Dormer, thrusting a fist into the air in victory. The hum grew louder. _But if he's bricking the system, why would there be a sound?_

Cassius glared into the console room as the hum grew louder still. "Dormer, what have you done?"

Doctor Dormer gave only a toothy grin, and two middle fingers. The hum grew deafening. Light twisted and rolled, and space itself seemed to fold inward. Suddenly, Zed was falling. The console room was gone, replaced by a dark void highlighted by mesmeric patterns and lights. He blinked, and then he was standing in a dusty, lifeless, rocky landscape under an alien sky of at least three moons, and a huge, dim, sun. He could see stars, although it was daytime. The air seemed thin. He cringed as a wave of pain washed through his chest. _This must have been his plan,_ he thought to himself. _He couldn't seal the portal generators, so he reversed them._ Whatever the man did, it probably destroyed the entire AetherCorp building. Zed almost felt lucky to be alive.

Nothing seemed to live in this world. He had heard of places like this, vacant sprawling planes "in-between worlds." _The ultra space wilds._ A flare of light appeared in the distance, maybe half a mile away – a swirling, flickering wormhole. He had no clue where it led, or how long it would hold, but it was his only chance. Limping onward into the barren, alien landscape, he could only pray that this would not be the end of him.


	23. To New Horizons

Marlo

They knew not where they were, but it did not matter – luck had favored them all. The odds of reaching a place like this through the ultra space wilds were one in a million, or so Zed claimed. The distant rushes of cars on the highway was music to Marlo's ears, and the city skyline on the nighttime horizon may as well have been the towers of Heaven itself. A toll had been paid, but her wishes were answered.

Penny moaned in pain as she held her hand against her face. They had managed to stop the bleeding, but she would still need medical attention as soon as possible. Her left eye was totally ruined.

"Get up, girl," added Carter, kneeling at her side while she cried and writhed on her side in the tall grass. "I've lost enough of my friends today. Don't make me go three for three." His nose was clearly broken.

Marlo had Seren's salamence, but she did not know how to command him, she and had no confidence that she would even be able to find a help from way up in the air. Finally, Shay detached a poké ball from his belt, and called out his tropius.

"Come on," he said. "Everyone, hang on tight. I don't have his saddle."

Shay and Carter carried Penny onto the pokémon's back, while Marlo and Zed followed suit.

"Hup hup!" called Shay to his tropius and with that, they rose to the air. Five survivors of a fallen society, gifted with a new chance in another world. They were mostly strangers but in a strange land, they only had each other, and Marlo could not have felt more grateful as they flew towards the glowing, unknown, city.


End file.
